To him who in the love of Nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language; for his gayer hours She has a voice of gladness, and a smile And eloquence of beauty, and she glides Into his darker musings, with a mild And healing sympathy, that steals away Their sharpness, ere he is aware; but broken into groups, as one would read them, they fall: To him who in the love of Nature Holds communion with her visible forms, She speaks a various language; For his gayer hours she has a voice of gladness, And a smile and eloquence of beauty, And she glides into his darker musings, With a mild and healing sympathy, That steals away their sharpness, ere he is aware. This was nothing new in poetry. Shakespeare had written his plays almost entirely in this way, and Milton all of "Paradise Lost" and "Paradise Regained," and the later English poets, most notably Wordsworth, had just returned to it; but in America it was as unfamiliar as the "free verse" which is puzzling a good many readers to-day partly because it is printed in units of meaning instead of units of measure. No wonder that Dana was surprised, "on this side the Atlantic." When Bryant went down into the crowded activity of New York City the general tone of his work began to change. The things that he was doing interested him as the practice of law never had done. The editorship of the _Evening Post_ made him not merely a news vender but a molder of public thought, and his entrance into the world of opinion gave him more of an interest in life itself and less in his own emotions. Very soon he wrote the "Hymn of the City" to record his discovery that God lived in the town as well as in the country and that he was the God of life quite as much as the God of death. Thy Spirit is around, Quickening the restless mass that sweeps along; And this eternal sound-- Voices and footfalls of the numberless throng-- Like the resounding sea, Or like the rainy tempest, speaks of Thee.