march of over sixty-five years across the literary field, was witness to many new developments in poetic writing, in both his own and other countries.  But while he perceived the splendor and color and rich novelty of these, he held in his own work to the plain theory and practice which had guided him from the start.  “The best poetry,” he still believed—­“that which takes the strongest hold of the general mind, not in one age only but in all ages—­is that which is always simple and always luminous.”  He did not embody in impassioned forms the sufferings, emotions, or problems of the human kind, but was disposed to generalize them, as in ‘The Journey of Life,’ the ’Hymn of the City,’ and ‘The Song of the Sower,’ it is characteristic that two of the longer poems, ‘Sella’ and ‘The Little People of the Snow,’ which are narratives, deal with legends of an individual human life merging itself with the inner life of nature, under the form of imaginary beings who dwell in the snow or in water.  On the other hand, one of his eulogists observes that although some of his contemporaries went much beyond him in fullness of insight and nearness to the great conflicts of the age, “he has certainly not been surpassed, perhaps not been approached, by any writer since Wordsworth, in that majestic repose and that self-reliant simplicity which characterized the morning stars of song.”  In ‘Our Country’s Call,’ however, one hears the ring of true martial enthusiasm; and there is a deep patriotic fervor in ’O Mother of a Mighty Race.’  The noble and sympathetic homage paid to the typical womanhood of a genuine woman of every day, in ‘The Conqueror’s Grave,’ reveals also great underlying warmth and sensitiveness of feeling.  ‘Robert of Lincoln,’ and ‘The Planting of the Apple-Tree’ are both touched with a lighter mood of joy in nature, which supplies a contrast to his usual pensiveness.

Bryant’s venerable aspect in old age—­with erect form, white hair, and flowing snowy beard—­gave him a resemblance to Homer; and there was something Homeric about his influence upon the literature of his country, in the dignity with which he invested the poetic art and the poet’s relation to the people.

[Illustration:  Signature:  George Parsons Lathrop]

[All Bryant’s poems were originally published by D. Appleton and Company.]

     THANATOPSIS

     To him who in the love of Nature holds
     Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
     A various language; for his gayer hours
     She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
     And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
     Into his darker musings, with a mild
     And healing sympathy, that steals away
     Their sharpness ere he is aware.  When thoughts
     Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
     Over thy spirit, and sad images
     Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
     And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,