And here we pray the indulgence of our readers to a rather liberal citation from one of these later poems, because it enables us to illustrate from his own lips what we have just been saying.  It is also one of those passages, not uncommon in modern poetry, in which the poet admits us to his confidence, and lets us see the working of the machinery as well as its product.  It is from “The Painted Cup,” a poem so called from a scarlet flower of that name found upon the Western prairies,

  “Now, if thou art a poet, tell me not
  That these bright chalices were tinted thus
  To hold the dew for fairies, when they meet
  On moonlight evenings in the hazel-bowers,
  And dance till they are thirsty.  Call not up,
  Amid this fresh and virgin solitude,
  The faded fancies of an elder world;
  But leave these scarlet cups to spotted moths
  Of June, and glistening flies, and hummingbirds,
  To drink from, when on all these boundless lawns
  The morning sun looks hot.  Or let the wind
  O’erturn in sport their ruddy brims, and pour
  A sudden shower upon the strawberry-plant,
  To swell the reddening fruit that even now
  Breathes a slight fragrance from the sunny slope.

  “But thou art of a gayer fancy.  Well,
  Let, then, the gentle Manitou of flowers,
  Lingering amid the bloomy waste he loves,
  Though all his swarthy worshippers are gone,
  Slender and small, his rounded cheek all brown
  And ruddy with the sunshine,—­let him come
  On summer mornings, when the blossoms wake,
  And part with little hands the spiky grass,
  And, touching with his cherry lips the edge
  Of these bright beakers, drain the gathered dew.”

What a lovely picture is this of the Manitou of flowers, and what a subject for an artist to embody in forms and colors!  The whole passage is very beautiful, and its beauty is in part derived from its truth.  It meets the requisitions of the philosophical understanding, as well as of the shaping and aggregating fancy.  The poetry is manly, masculine, and simple.  The ornaments are of pure gold, such as will bear the test of open daylight.

It is the function of the critic to discriminate and divide, and we have attempted to deal thus with the poems of Bryant; but some of the best of his productions cannot be classified and arranged under any particular head.  They breathe the spirit of universal humanity, and speak a language intelligible to every human heart.  Among these are “The Evening Wind,” “The Conqueror’s Grave,” and “The Future Life.”  All of these are exquisite alike in conception and execution.  We suppose that most persons have in regard to poetry certain fancies, whims, preferences, founded on reasons too delicate to be revealed or too airy to be expressed.  As Mrs. Battles in a moment of confidence confessed to “Elia” that hearts was her favorite suit, so we breathe in the ear of the public an acknowledgment, that, of