We estimate him more correctly to-day as a poet of the second rank, whose powers were limited but genuine. Indeed, even in his own day, Bryant"s reputation waned somewhat, for he never fulfilled the promise of that first volume, and "To a Waterfowl" and "Thanatopsis" remain the best poems he ever wrote.
William Cullen Bryant was born at c.u.mmington, Ma.s.sachusetts, in 1794, the son of a physician, from whom he received practically all his early training, and who was himself a writer of verse. The boy"s talent for versification was encouraged, and some of his productions were recited at school and published in the poet"s corner of the local newspaper. In 1808, when Bryant was fourteen years old, the first volume of his poems was printed at Boston, with an advertis.e.m.e.nt certifying the extreme youth of the author. It contained nothing of any importance, and why anyone should care to read dull verse because it was written by a child is incomprehensible, but the book had some success, and Bryant"s father was a very proud man.
Three years later, Bryant entered Williams College, but soon left, and, not having the means to pay his way through Yale, gave up the thought of college altogether, and began the study of law. He also read widely in English literature, and while in his seventeenth year produced what may fairly be called the first real poem written in America, "Thanatopsis,"
a wonderful achievement for a youth of that age. Six months later came the beautiful lines, "To a Waterfowl," and Bryant"s career as a poet was fairly begun. In 1821 came the thin volume in which these and other poems were collected, and its success finally decided its author to relinquish a career at the bar and to turn to literature.
In the years that followed, Bryant produced a few other noteworthy poems, yet it is significant of the thinness of his inspiration that, though he began writing in early youth and lived to the age of eighty-four, his total product was scant in the extreme when compared with that of any of the acknowledged masters. His earnings from this source were never great, and, removing to New York, he secured, in 1828, the editorship of the _Evening Post_, with which he remained a.s.sociated until his death.
In his later years, he became an imposing national figure. But his poetry never regained the wide acceptation which it once enjoyed, largely because taste in verse has changed, and we have come to lay more stress upon beauty than upon ethical teaching.
America has never lacked for versifiers, and Bryant"s success encouraged a greater throng than ever to "lisp in numbers"; but few of them grew beyond the lisping stage, and it was not until the middle of the century that any emerged from this throng to take their stand definitely beside the author of "Thanatopsis." Then, almost simultaneously, six others disengaged themselves--Longfellow, Whittier, Poe, Lowell, Holmes and Emerson--and remain to this day the truest poets in our history.
Of Emerson we have already spoken. His poetry has been, and still is, the subject of controversy. To some, it is the best in our literature; to others, it is not poetry at all, but merely rhythmic prose. It is lacking in pa.s.sion, in poetic glow--for how can fire come out of an iceberg?--but about some of it there is the clean-cut beauty of the cameo. You know, of course, his immortal quatrain,
Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why This charm is wasted on the earth and sky, Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing, Then Beauty is its own excuse for being.
More than once he hit the bull"s-eye, so to speak, in just that splendid way.
Of the others, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is easily first in popular reputation, if not in actual achievement. Born at Portland, Maine, in 1807, of a good family, he developed into an attractive and promising boy; was a cla.s.smate at Bowdoin College of Nathaniel Hawthorne, and after three years" study abroad, was given the chair of modern languages there. For five years he held this position, filling it so well that in 1834 he was called to Harvard. He entered upon his duties there after another year abroad, and continued with them for eighteen years. The remainder of his life was spent quietly amid a congenial circle of friends at Cambridge. He was essentially home-loving, and took no strenuous interest in public affairs; for this reason, perhaps, he won a warmer place in public affection than has been accorded to any other American man-of-letters, for the American people is a home-loving people, and especially admires that quality in its great men.
From his earliest youth, Longfellow had written verses of somewhat unusual merit for a boy, though remarkable rather for smoothness of rhythm than for depth or originality of thought. His modern language studies involved much translation, but his first book, "Hyperion," was not published until 1839. It attained a considerable vogue, but as nothing to the wide popularity of "Voices of the Night," which appeared the same year. Two years later appeared "Ballads and Other Poems," and the two collections established their author in the popular heart beyond possibility of a.s.sault. They contained "A Psalm of Life," "The Reaper and the Flowers," "The Village Blacksmith," and "Excelsior," which, however we may dispute their claims as poetry, have taken their place among the treasured household verse of the nation.
Four years later, in "The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems," he added two more to this collection, "The Day is Done" and "The Bridge." The publication, in 1847, of "Evangeline" raised him to the zenith of his reputation. His subsequent work confirmed him in popular estimation as the greatest of American poets--"Hiawatha," "The Courtship of Miles Standish," and such shorter poems as "Resignation," "The Children"s Hour," "Paul Revere"s Ride," and "The Old Clock on the Stairs."
But, after all, Longfellow was not a really great poet. He lacked the strength of imagination, the sureness of insight and the delicacy of fancy necessary to great poetry. He was rather a sentimentalist to whom study and practice had given an exceptional command of rhythm. The prevailing note of his best-known lyrics is one of sentimental sorrow--the note which is of the very widest appeal. His public is largely the same public which weeps over the death of little Nell and loves to look at Landseer"s "The Old Shepherd"s Chief Mourner."
Longfellow and d.i.c.kens and Landseer were all great artists and did admirable work, but scarcely the very highest work. But Longfellow"s ballads "found an echo in the universal human heart," and won him an affection such as has been accorded no other modern poet. His place is by the hearth-side rather than on the mountain-top--by far the more comfortable and cheerful position of the two.
The year of Longfellow"s birth witnessed that of another American poet, more virile, but of a narrower appeal--John Greenleaf Whittier.
Whittier"s birthplace was the old house at East Haverhill, Ma.s.sachusetts, where many generations of his Quaker ancestors had dwelt.
The family was poor, and the boy"s life was a hard and cramped one, with few opportunities for schooling or culture; yet its very rigor made for character, and developed that courage and simplicity which were Whittier"s n.o.blest attributes.
What there was in the boy that moved him to write verse it would be difficult to say--some bent, some crotchet, which defies explanation.
Certain it is that he did write; his sister sent some of his verses to a neighboring paper, and the result was a visit from its editor, William Lloyd Garrison, who encouraged the boy to get some further schooling, and afterwards helped him to secure a newspaper position in Boston. But his health failed him, and he returned to Haverhill, removing, in 1836, to Amesbury, where the remainder of his life was spent.
He had already become interested in politics, had joined the abolitionists, and was soon the most influential of the protestants against slavery. Into this battle he threw himself heart and soul. It is amusing to reflect that, though a Quaker and advocate of non-resistance, he probably did more to render the Civil War inevitable than any other one man. During the war, his lyrics aided the Northern cause; and as soon as it was over, he labored unceasingly to allay the evil pa.s.sions which the contest had aroused. He lived to the ripe age of eighty-five, simply and bravely, and his career was from first to last consistent and inspiring, one of the sweetest and gentlest in history.
Although Whittier was endowed with a brighter spark of the divine fire than Longfellow, he himself was conscious that he did not possess
The seerlike power to show The secrets of the heart and mind.
He was lacking, too, in intellectual equipment--in culture, in mastery of rhythm and diction, in felicitous phrasing. And yet, on at least two occasions, he rang sublimely true--in his denunciation of Webster, "Ichabod," and in his idyll of New England rural life, "Snow-Bound."
The third of these New England poets, and also the least important, is Oliver Wendell Holmes. Born at Cambridge, in the inner circle of New England aristocracy, educated at Harvard, and studying medicine in Boston and Paris, he practiced his profession for twelve years, until, in 1847, he was called to the chair of anatomy and physiology at Harvard, continuing in that position until 1882. He lived until 1894, the last survivor of the seven poets whom we have mentioned.
During his student days, Holmes had gained considerable reputation as a writer of humorous and sentimental society verse, and during his whole life he wrote practically no other kind. Long practice gave him an easy command of rhythm, and a careful training added delicacy to his diction.
He became remarkably dexterous in rhyme, and grew to be the recognized celebrant of cla.s.s reunions and public dinners. Urbane, felicitous and possessing an unflagging humor, he was the prince of after-dinner poets--not a lofty position, be it observed, nor one making for immortal fame. His highwater mark was reached in three poems, "The Chambered Nautilus," "The Deacon"s Masterpiece," and that faultless piece of familiar verse, "The Last Leaf," all of which are widely and affectionately known. He lacked power and depth of imagination, the field in which he was really at home was a narrow one, and the verdict of time will probably be that he was a pleasant versifier rather than a true poet.
His claim to the attention of posterity is likely to rest, not on his verses, but upon a sprightly hodgepodge of imaginary table-talk, called "The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table"--a warm-hearted, kindly book, which still retains its savor.
And this brings us to our most versatile man-of-letters--James Russell Lowell. Born at Cambridge, in the old house called "Elmwood," so dear to his readers, spending an ideal boyhood in the midst of a cultured circle, treading the predestined path through Harvard, studying law and gaining admission to the bar--such was the story of his life for the first twenty-five years. As a student at Harvard, he had written a great deal of prose and verse of considerable merit, and he continued this work after graduation, gaining a livelihood somewhat precarious, indeed, yet sufficient to render it unnecessary for him to attempt to practice law. But it was not until 1848 that he really "struck his gait."
Certainly, then, he struck it to good purpose by the publication of the "Biglow Papers" and "A Fable for Critics," and stood revealed as one of the wisest, wittiest, most fearless and most patriotic of moralists and satirists. For the "Biglow Papers" mark a culmination of American humorous and satiric poetry which has never since been rivalled; and the "Fable for Critics" displays a satiric power unequalled since the days when Byron laid his lash along the backs of "Scotch Reviewers."
Both were real contributions to American letters, but as pure poetry both were surpa.s.sed later in the same year by his "Vision of Sir Launfal." These three productions, indeed, promised more for the future than Lowell was able to perform. He had gone up like a balloon; but, instead of mounting higher, he drifted along at the same level, and at last came back to earth.
The succeeding seven years saw no production of the first importance from his pen, although a series of lectures on poetry, which he delivered before the Lowell Inst.i.tute, brought him the offer of the chair at Harvard which Longfellow had just relinquished. Two years later, he became editor of the _Atlantic Monthly_, holding the position until 1861. During this time, he wrote little, but the opening of the Civil War gave a fresh impetus to his muse, his most noteworthy contribution to letters being the "Commemoration Ode" with which he marked its close--a poem which has risen steadily in public estimation, and which is, without doubt, the most notable of its kind ever delivered in America. The poems which he published during the next twenty years did little to enhance his reputation, which, as a poet, must rest upon his "Biglow Papers," his odes, and his "Vision of Sir Launfal."
Yet poetry was but one of his modes of expression, and, some think, the less important one. Immediately following the Civil War, he turned his attention to criticism, and when these essays were collected under the t.i.tles "Among My Books" and "My Study Windows," they proved their author to be the ablest critic, the most accomplished scholar, the most cultured writer--in a word, the greatest all-around man-of-letters, in America.
This prominence brought him the offer of the Spanish mission, which he accepted, going from Madrid to London, in 1880, as Amba.s.sador to Great Britain, and remaining there for five years. The service he did there is incalculable; as the spokesman for America and the representative of American culture, he took his place with dignity and honor among England"s greatest; his addresses charmed and impressed them, and he may be fairly said to have laid the foundations of that cordial friendship between America and Great Britain which exists to-day. "I am a bookman,"
was Lowell"s proudest boast--not only a writer of books, but a mighty reader of books; and he is one of the most significant figures in American letters.
So we come to the man who measures up more nearly to the stature of a great poet than any other American--Edgar Allan Poe. Outside of America, there has never been any hesitancy in p.r.o.nouncing Poe the first poet of his country; but, at home, it is only recently his real merit has come to be at all generally acknowledged.
Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston in 1809--a stroke of purest irony on the part of fate, for he was in no respect a Bostonian, and it was to Bostonians especially that he was anathema. His parents were actors, travelling from place to place, and his birth at Boston was purely accidental. They had no home and no fortune, but lived from hand to mouth, in the most precarious way, and both of them were dead before their son was two years old. He had an elder brother and a younger sister, and these three babies were left stranded at Richmond, Virginia, entirely without money. Luckily they were too young to realize how very dark their future was, and the Providence which looks after the sparrows also looked after them. The wife of a well-to-do tobacco merchant, named John Allan, took a fancy to the dark-eyed, dark-haired boy of two, and, having no children of her own, adopted him.
It was better fortune than he could have hoped for, for he was brought up in comfort in a good home, and his foster-parents seem to have loved him and to have been ambitious for his future. He was an erratic boy, and was soon to get into the first of those difficulties which ended by wrecking his life. For, entering the University of Virginia, he made the mistake of a.s.sociating with a fast set, with whom he had no business, and ended by losing heavy sums of money, which he was, of course, unable to pay, and which his foster-father very properly refused to pay for him. Instead, he removed the boy from college and put him to work in his office at Richmond.
Edgar felt that, in refusing to pay his debts, his foster-father had besmirched his honor. The thought rankled in his soul, and he ended by running away from home. He got to Boston, somehow, and enlisted in the army, serving for three years as a private. At the end of that time, there was a reconciliation between him and his foster-father, and the latter provided a subst.i.tute for him in the army, and secured him an appointment to the military academy at West Point.
Why Poe should have felt that he was fitted for army life is difficult to understand, since he had always been impatient of discipline; but to West Point he went and very promptly got into trouble there, which culminated, at the end of the year, in court-martial and dismissal. He knew that his foster-father"s patience was exhausted, and that he could expect nothing more from him, and he soon proved himself incapable of self-support.
He drifted from New York to Baltimore, often without knowing where his next meal was coming from, and finally, at Baltimore, his father"s widowed sister gave him a home, and he soon married her fragile daughter, Virginia Clemm. But he had long been a prey to intemperance, and his habits in consequence were so irregular that he was unable to retain any permanent position. The truth seems to be that Poe was of a temperament so intensely nervous and sensitive that the smallest amount of alcoholic stimulant excited him beyond control, and he lacked the will-power to leave it alone altogether, which was his only chance of safety.
Yet he had gained a certain reputation with discerning people by the publication of a few poems of surprising merit, as well as a number of tales as remarkable and compelling as have ever been written in any language. That is a broad statement, and yet it is literally true. Not only is Poe America"s greatest poet, but he is still more decidedly her greatest short-story writer--so much the greatest, that with the exception of Nathaniel Hawthorne, she has never produced another to rival him.
If further testimony to his genius were needed, it might be found in the fact that he was still unable to make a living with his pen, and was forced to see his wife growing daily weaker without the means to provide her proper nourishment. His sufferings were frightful; he was compelled to bend his pride to an appeal for public charity, and the death of his wife wrecked such moral self-control as he had remaining.
The rest is soon told. There was a rapid deterioration, and on October 3, 1849, he was found unconscious in a saloon at Baltimore, where an election had been in progress and where Poe had been made drunk and then used as an illegal voter. He was taken to a hospital, treated for delirium tremens, and died three days later, a miserable outcast, at an age where he should have been at the very zenith of his powers. The pages of the world"s history show no death more pathetically tragic.
Such a death naturally offended right-thinking people. Especially did it offend the New England conscience, which has never been able to divorce art from morals; and as the literary dominance of New England was at that time absolute, Poe was buried under a ma.s.s of uncharitable criticism. It should not be forgotten that he had struck the poisoned barb of his satire deep into many a New England sage, and it was, perhaps, only human nature to strike back. So it came to pa.s.s that Poe was pointed out, not as a man of genius, but as a horrible example and degrading influence to be sedulously avoided.
With foreign readers, all this counted for nothing. They were concerned not with the life of the man, but with the work of the artist, and they found that work consummately good. They were charmed and thrilled by the haunting melody of his verse and the weird horror of his tales. In his own country, recognition of his genius has grown rapidly of recent years. Within his own sphere, he is unquestionably the greatest artist America can boast--he climbed Parna.s.sus higher than any of his countrymen, and if he did not quite attain a seat among the immortals, he at least caught some portion of their radiance.
After Poe, the man whom foreign critics consider America"s most representative poet is another who has been without honor in his own country, and about whom, even yet, there is the widest difference of opinion--Walt Whitman. Whitman was ostracized for many years not because of his life, which was regular and admirable enough, but because of his verse, which is exceedingly irregular in more than one respect.
Whitman was by birth and training a man of the people. His father was a carpenter, and, after receiving a common-school education, the boy entered a printer"s office at the age of thirteen. A printer"s office is, in itself, a source of education, and Whitman soon began to write for the papers, finally going to New York City, where, for twelve years, he worked on Newspaper Row, as reporter or compositor, making friends with all sorts and conditions of men and entering heart and soul into the busy life of the great city. The people, the seething ma.s.ses on the streets, had a compelling fascination for him.
Tiring of New York, at last, he started on a tramp trip to the southwest, worked in New Orleans and other towns, swung around through the northwest, and so back to Brooklyn, where he became, strangely enough, a contractor--a builder and seller of houses. He had been reading a great deal, all these years, but as yet had given no indication of what was to be his literary life-work.
And yet, fermenting inside the man and at last demanding expression, was a strange new philosophy of democracy, all-tolerant, holding the individual to be of the first importance, male and female equal, the body to be revered no less than the soul. For the promulgation of this philosophy, some worthy literary form was needed--poetry, since that was the n.o.blest form, but poetry stripped of conventions and stock phrases, as "fluent and free as the people and the land and the great system of democracy which it was to celebrate." With some such idea as this, not outlined in words, nor, perhaps, very clearly understood even by himself, Whitman set to work, and the result was the now famous "Leaves of Gra.s.s," a collection of twelve poems, printed by the author in Brooklyn in 1855.
Like most other philosophies and prophecies, it fell on heedless ears.
Few people read it, and those who did were exasperated by its far-fetched diction or scandalized by its free treatment of delicate topics. In the next year, a second edition appeared, containing thirty-two poems; but the book had practically no sale.
Then came the Civil War, and Whitman, volunteering not for the field, but for work in the hospitals, proved that the doctrine of brotherly love, so basic to his poems, was basic also to his character. "Not till the sun excludes you, neither will I exclude you," he had declared; and now he devoted himself to nursing, on battlefield, in camp and hospital, doing what he could to cheer and lighten the worst side of war, an attractive and inspiring figure.
Lincoln, looking out of a window of the White House, saw him go past one day; a majestic person with snow-white beard and hair, his cotton shirt open at the throat, six feet tall and perfectly proportioned; and the President, without knowing who he was, but mistaking him probably for a common laborer, turned to a friend who stood beside him and remarked, "There goes a man!" And Whitman was a man. Up to that time, he had never been ill a day; but two years later, at the age of fifty-three, his health gave way, under the strain of nursing, and from that time until his death he was, physically, "a man in ruins." Mentally, he was as alert and virile as ever.