esque production, “ The Ruins of Italica "; and “The Lost Bird" (by Carolina Colorado de Perry) is suggestive and melodious as the Spanish lyric itself. Throughout the volume are evidences of a serene and joyous prime, which age cannot wither, nor the rust of years corrode. "The Life that Is," "A Sick Bed," "The New and the Old," "The Cloud on the Way," are all recognitions of the season to which the singer and his life-companions have arrived; but they breathe compliance with the sweet law of Nature's successions, and are radiant with faith that looks beyond the vail. His philosophy, like his poetic art, resembles a tranquil river still widening toward the close. And now, in a brief and merely suggestive review, how little fault we have been able to find with these Thirty Poems! Their excellences have grown upon us; for their author incases himself in proof, and is open to few charges, save that of being “faultily faultless." They have the effect of Kensett's pictures-cool, rich, dark, satisfying, a welcome relief from the feverish midday glare, the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. With all this, such a burden of rhymes now loads the press, that it is doubtful whether, if Mr. Bryant were for the first time craving the public suffrage, he would assume a central position in the hemicycle of our poets. For the unusual, not the noblest, is in vogue. It was much for him to have commenced in that fallow-period of American literature, when any writer was noticeable; and fortunate that his sure excellence thus reached the foreground, where all pause to catch the deep sound of his chanting. To you, who have yet your laurels to win, and would fain win them purely, what heart-searching years of inappreciation and neglect! Your task is harder than his. But approach the altar with his reverent step; be simple, conscientious, impassioned, assured of the goal. Thus you, he says, may also Frame a lay That haply may endure from age to age, And they who read shall say: What witchery hangs upon this poet's page! What art is his, the written spells to find That sway from mood to mood the willing mind! IN N completion of his Homeric labors, Mr. Bryant now gives us the translation of a work which, although composed in the very diction of the Iliad, varies widely from that poem in feeling, material, and theme. The two epics do not differ as "Paradise ses Regained," for instance, differs from "Paradise Pet Lost." The Odyssey is correlative to the Iliad, and, in its own way, not inferior. The latter is all fire and action, portraying superbly barbaric manners and glorying in the right of might alone: a succession of lyrical passages, thrown together much at random, which rehearse the councils and warfare of men and gods, and are strong with passion and the noble. imagery of an heroic age. The Odyssey has that unity which the Iliad lacks. Its structural purpose, to recount the wanderings of Ulysses, is evenly carried through to the appointed end. Manifestly a somewhat later work, it hints at the repose of civilization, and is almost idyllic in tone. After rising to epic fury, as in the slaying of the suitors, it hastens, regardless of anti-climax, to the scenes and dialogue of pastoral life. In it we see less of "Olympus' 1 The Atlantic Monthly, May, 1872. hierarchy" than in the Iliad, and more of the nymphs and demigods who dwell on earth and haunt the ways of men. Otherwise considered, the Odyssey is Eastern, almost arabesque; a piece of wonder-lore; a tale of enchantments; a magical journey, involving the real and ideal geography of the ancient world. It moves from island to island, and from town to town, never straying far from the ocean; delighting to visit many peoples and to cleave the hoary brine. It would seem natural for the poet of our own forests and waters to find himself more in sympathy with the spirit of the Odyssey; yet, in his translation of the Iliad, Mr. Bryant entered, as if endowed with new and dramatic inspiration, upon the fervid action of the martial song. He now tells us that, executing his present task, he has "certainly missed in the Odyssey the fire and vehemence of which" he " was so often sensible in the Iliad, and the effect of which was to kindle the mind of the translator." We will look for compensation to those exquisite descriptive passages, which, scattered through the Odyssey, stimulate the copyist to put forth all his powers. As Mr. Bryant's version of the Iliad was greatest where most strength and passion were required, so we observe that in the selectest portions of the Odyssey he warms up to his work, and is never finer than at a critical moment. The reader of these volumes will be charmed with the perfect grace and beauty of many scenic descriptions, where the translator's command of language seems most enlarged, and the measure flows with the rhythmic perfection of his original poems. Take, for illustration, an extract from the passage in the Fifth Book, familiar through the verse of many English minstrels, who have not essayed a complete reproduction of the Homeric songs: But when he reached that island far away, This is far more literal than the favorite translation by Leigh Hunt, and excels all others in ease and choice of language. The following extract will show how effectively Mr. Bryant substitutes, for the Greek color |