With no great range of imagination, these lines have been justly admired for their delicacy of expression. Some of the images are very effective. Nothing can be better than --the bards sublime, Whose distant footsteps echo Down the corridors of Time. The idea of the last quatrain is also very effective. The poem on the whole, however, is chiefly to be admired for the graceful _insouciance_ of its metre, so well in accordance with the character of the sentiments, and especially for the _ease_ of the general manner. This "ease" or naturalness, in a literary style, it has long been the fashion to regard as ease in appearance alone--as a point of really difficult attainment. But not so:--a natural manner is difficult only to him who should never meddle with it--to the unnatural. It is but the result of writing with the understanding, or with the instinct, that _the tone_, in composition, should always be that which the mass of mankind would adopt--and must perpetually vary, of course, with the occasion. The author who, after the fashion of _The North American Review_, should be upon _all_ occasions merely "quiet," must necessarily upon _many_ occasions be simply silly, or stupid; and has no more right to be considered "easy" or "natural" than a Cockney exquisite, or than the sleeping Beauty in the waxworks. Among the minor poems of Bryant, none has so much impressed me as the one which he entitles "June." I quote only a portion of it: There, through the long, long summer hours, The golden light should lie, And thick young herbs and groups of flowers Stand in their beauty by. The oriole should build and tell His love-tale, close beside my cell; The idle butterfly Should rest him there, and there be heard The housewife-bee and humming bird. And what, if cheerful shouts at noon, Come, from the village sent, Or songs of maids, beneath the moon, With fairy laughter blent? And what if, in the evening light, Betrothed lovers walk in sight Of my low monument? I would the lovely scene around Might know no sadder sight nor sound. I know, I know I should not see The season's glorious show, Nor would its brightness shine for me; Nor its wild music flow; But if, around my place of sleep, The friends I love should come to weep, They might not haste to go. Soft airs and song, and light and bloom, Should keep them lingering by my tomb. These to their soften'd hearts should bear The thought of what has been, And speak of one who cannot share The gladness of the scene; Whose part in all the pomp that fills The circuit of the summer hills, Is--that his grave is green; And deeply would their hearts rejoice To hear again his living voice.