“Columns of shining smoke uprose, and flashes of flame were Thrust through their folds and withdrawn, _like the quivering hands of a martyr_. Then as the winds seized the gleeds and the burning thatch, and, uplifting, Whirled them aloft through the air, at once from a hundred house-tops Started the sheeted smoke with flashes of flame intermingled.” The following exquisite passage, on the mocking-bird in the far west, is, perhaps, the finest and most life-like description in the poem: “Then from a neighboring thicket, the mocking-bird, wildest of singers, Swinging aloft on a willow spray that hung o’er the water, Shook from his little throat such floods of delicious music, That the whole air, and the woods, and the waves, seemed silent to listen. Plaintive at first were the tones and sad, then soaring to madness Seemed they to follow or guide the revel of frenzied Bacchantes. Then single notes were heard, in sorrowful low lamentation, Till, having gathered them all, he flung them abroad in derision, As when, after a storm, a gust of wind through the tree-tops Shakes down the rattling rain in a crystal shower on the branches.” Here we have a view of our own city, for which we are reasonably grateful to the poet: “In that delightful land which is washed by the Delaware’s waters, Guarding in sylvan shades the name of Penn the apostle, Stands on the banks of its beautiful stream the city he founded. There all the air is balm, and the peach is the emblem of beauty, And the streets still re-echo the names of the trees of the forest, As if they fain would appease the Dryads whose haunts they molested.” Mr. Longfellow shows in this poem, together with much that is new, his usual felicity and breadth of imagery and comparison. We cannot take leave of his book more pleasantly than in quoting a few of his separate excellencies of thought or language: