Contemporaries. 217 "Contemporaries," it may be noted that there has been a good deal of attention to form. Slovenliness. has been a less common fault than artificiality; and while a studied disregard of art has made its appearance once, it has not found favor. Perhaps, however, too much attention has been paid to form, and too little to matter. For form itself is only a means to an end, although, on the lower plane of subjects, it sometimes deceives by seeming to be an end in itself; and in successful higher work by being almost identical with its idea. Whitman, Taylor, and Lanier are in this period figures all worthy of special study, and the selections from them have therefore been put in a subdivision by themselves. Other poets have written work which in a general consideration cannot be overlooked. Of them, the most picturesque and striking figure has been Joaquin Miller. He is a poet by temperament, but one of a temperament more common in the early years of the century than in these days of colder blood. His poems have a wealth and gorgeousness of color that no American has equalled. Of late his work has exhibited signs of a revising care that not all poets give. Thomas Bailey Aldrich is a poet of exquisite culture. John Boyle O'Reilly had a life and character more worthy even than the metrical frame which surrounds the sketch of it. Among the poets of the South, Hayne possessed a gentleness and humor, and Timrod a thought and seriousness that render them both of marked attractiveness. Without mentioning others, it may be said that for few in this period has poetry been constantly the one aim. With some it is only an utterance of momentary youthful sentiment; others have not reached any real mastery until after middle life. For most of them, apparently, nature and experience are not rich enough, or perseverance in the poetic direction great enough, for filling out a life devoted to the Muses. For the few, however, who would have devoted themselves thus, those to whom health or wealth or life itself were as nothing in their eyes in comparison with the prize of their high calling, circumstances have been hard, though never wholly baffling. No one of these men has, like Lanier, died so young as to fail in entering on the path of glory; though no one of them has as yet achieved the assured fame of a "classic." Some one has said that the present ideal in American poetry is an aggregation of distinct types. For the successful master of the verse of his land the ideal is rather an assimilation of these types by the artist, a reconstruction and reproportioning to a fairer whole. Such a purpose is not, perhaps, out of reach of the lyrist; but there are some signs of movement toward drama, which is better adapted to the vast and varied phenomena of a nation's life. Thus far, attempts have been few, and if popular, they have been rude in form and primitive in treatment; but the drama which is both representative and civilized must show both the plainest and the stateliest of life, subject to such dramatic conditions as come into existence only at rare epochs. Christopher Pearse Cranch was born at Alexandria, Va., March 8, 1813. He was a painter and a poet, residing in Europe for several years, later on Staten Island, in Cambridge, and in New York. Cranch died at Cambridge, Mass., January 20, 1892. Cranch's poetry is a union of the grave and the gay. One might, on the reading of some pieces of his, ascribe to him a perpetual and irrepressible liveliness, were it not for his lines of sober meditation. An instance of this latter style is found in the Stanzas, which flow forth, however, with as graceful limpidity as any of his lighter productions. STANZAS. Thought is deeper than all speech Souls to souls can never teach What unto themselves was taught. We are spirits clad in veils : Man by man was never seen; All our deep communion fails Heart to heart was never known; Like the stars that gem the sky, What is social company But a babbling summer stream? What our wise philosophy But the glancing of a dream? Only when the sun of love Melts the scattered stars of thought; Only when we live above What the dim-eyed world hath taught; Only when our souls are fed By the font which gave them birth, And by inspiration led, Which they never drew from earth, We, like parted drops of rain Swelling till they meet and run, Shall be all absorbed again, Melting, flowing into one. William Wetmore Story, represents at present more completely than any other, the American artist at once in marble and in song. Story was born at Salem, Mass., February 12, 1819, and is the son of Chief Justice Story. He was graduated at Harvard and entered the bar, but settled in Italy in 1848. Besides his sculpture, he has given to the world volumes of poems in his youth and age. His subjects deal with the region of the purely cultivated tastes rather than with the every-day life of the people. THE THREE SINGERS. "Where is a singer to cheer me? He sat on his couch of crimson, |