Shrill screeching, "Revenge!" in the wind-rush; and pallid Maclean, Age-feeble with anger and impotent pain, Crawled up on the crag, and lay flat, and locked hold of dead roots of a tree And gazed hungrily o'er, and the blood from his back drip-dripped in the brine, And a sea-hawk flung down a skeleton fish as he flew, And the mother stared white on the waste of blue, And the wind drove a cloud to seaward, and the sun began to shine. SONG OF THE CHATTAHOOCHEE. Out of the hills of Habersham, Down the valleys of Hall, I hurry amain to reach the plain, Far from the valleys of Hall. All down the hills of Habersham, The wilful waterweed held me thrall, The laving laurel turned my tide, The ferns and the fondling grass said Stay, The dewberry dipped for to work delay, Here in the valleys of Hall. High o'er the hills of Habersham, Veiling the valleys of Hall, The hickory told me manifold Fair tales of shade, the poplar tall Wrought me her shadowy self to hold, Deep shades of the hills of Habersham, And oft in the hills of Habersham, The white quartz shone, and the smooth brook-stone Did bar me of passage with friendly brawl, And many a luminous jewel lone Crystals clear or a cloud with mist Ruby, garnet, and amethyst Made lures with the lights of streaming stone In the cleft of the hills of Habersham, In the beds of the valleys of Hall. But oh, not the hills of Habersham, Avail; I am fain for to water the plain. Downward, to toil and be mixed with the main, The dry fields burn, and the mills are to turn, And a myriad flowers mortally yearn, And the lordly main from beyond the plain Calls through the valleys of Hall. TAMPA ROBINS.' The robin laughed in the orange-tree : "Burn, golden globes in leafy sky, Will shine and shoot among the spheres "If that I hate wild winter's spite- "I'll south with the sun and keep my clime; My wing is king of the summer-time; My breast to the sun his torch shall hold ; 1 Tampa, a bay on the west side of Florida. PART II. 1. Forerunners. IN a brief general survey of the field of what I will call præ-classic American literature, discussion of that portion containing the works of writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries can hardly be either interesting in itself or fertile in its results. Among the commonplace of those times, a gleam of personality appeared only occasionally in poetry, as in a lyric of Freneau's like The Wild Honeysuckle. It is different with authors during the first generation in the nineteenth century. In the rarity of the intellectual atmosphere, literature was still beginning to form. In prose, Irving and Cooper had originated American fiction. In poetry, Bryant, both by example and by precept, was pointing the way onward, though Bryant's early development in poetic art makes it necessary to consider him not here but among the "Classics." Other producers of verse at this time were quite various in merit. Very few of them left a lasting name, and are principally interesting historically. Some of them, such as Sprague and Neal, are now indeed nothing more than names. Others are more fortunate through possessing associations which enable their fame to survive. R. H. Dana was formerly called a critic and a poet; he is now known as Bryant's friend, and as one of those who had the best poetical judgment among the men of his time. Drake wrote The American Flag and The Culprit Fay; but we seem to know more of the man himself by reading concerning him his associate Halleck's memorial lines. Percival will be far more likely to be remembered through Lowell's essay on Percival than by all the poetry he himself ever wrote. Such are a few of the attitudes with which Time surveys those writers who in their own day had been greeted with loud applause! Two of the "Forerunners," however, have left a fame that is more than shadowy. Here the men behind the works come out distinctly as literary figures; and the name of each stands for a personality that is quite remarkable. The first of the two, in point of time as well as of poetic ability, FitzGreene Halleck, was the finest and most typical poet of that day.' In collaboration with Drake he printed in 1819, under the title of The Croakers, a series of poetical satires upon public characters of the period, a series which achieved an immediate local fame; but Halleck is now better known by Marco Bozzaris and Burns. His own character may still better keep him a lasting name. He lacked, however, the intellectual independence and the creative genius which is unhindered by the wearing and destructive effect of drudgery. The other writer, Willis, was a man of 1 Bryant is a poet of the century. |