Our Summer Of English Poetry
Like The Greek And Latin Before It, Seems Well Advanced Toward
Its Fall, And Laden
With the fruit and foliage of the season,
with bright autumnal tints, but soon the winter will scatter its
myriad
Clustering and shading leaves, and leave only a few
desolate and fibrous boughs to sustain the snow and rime, and
creak in the blasts of ages. We cannot escape the impression
that the Muse has stooped a little in her flight, when we come to
the literature of civilized eras. Now first we hear of various
ages and styles of poetry; it is pastoral, and lyric, and
narrative, and didactic; but the poetry of runic monuments is of
one style, and for every age. The bard has in a great measure
lost the dignity and sacredness of his office. Formerly he was
called a _seer_, but now it is thought that one man sees as much
as another. He has no longer the bardic rage, and only conceives
the deed, which he formerly stood ready to perform. Hosts of
warriors earnest for battle could not mistake nor dispense with
the ancient bard. His lays were heard in the pauses of the
fight. There was no danger of his being overlooked by his
contemporaries. But now the hero and the bard are of different
professions. When we come to the pleasant English verse, the
storms have all cleared away and it will never thunder and
lighten more. The poet has come within doors, and exchanged the
forest and crag for the fireside, the hut of the Gael, and
Stonehenge with its circles of stones, for the house of the
Englishman.
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