More than that, we have asseverated that even in poems which are not immediately emotional, which are directed to some phase of mere external nature, the humanitary tendencies of Bryant break out, or shine through as veins of silver from the rocks. It is, in fact, one of his most charming peculiarities, that he habitually connects great moral and social truths with the various aspects of nature. His muse is never satisfied with celebrating the pomp and glory of the external world; she must find a deeper meaning in all than what the eye sees or the ear hears; she must trace some beautiful analogy, some spiritual significance on which both mind and heart can repose. Bryant's descriptions of nature, it is granted, are accurate to a line; what he speaks he knows; he finds no nightingales nor cowslips just three thousand miles away from where it is possible for them to live; and he never writes from his memory of books; yet his descriptions are more than mere descriptions,--dull scientific catalogues of quantities,--herbariums of dried plants,--museums of withered lifeless twigs, and of stuffed animals standing thereupon! They have all a meaning under them--a hidden wisdom--a genial yet profound human soul. It is thus that he has wound our affections around the North Star, the Winds, Monument Mountain, and even the Ruffled Grouse. How often, too, in the midst of his general meditations and philosophizings, does some touching individual allusion creep in, to show that the poet's heart is all alive with sensibility: as in the Hymn to Death, which closes with that solemn monody on the Departure of his Father: "Alas! I little thought that the stern Power, Whose fearful praise I sung, would try me thus, Before the strain was ended. It must cease.-- For he is in his grave, who taught my youth The art of verse, and in the bud of life Offered me to the Muses. Oh, cut off Untimely! when the reason in its strength Ripened by years of toil and studious search, And watch of Nature's silent lessons, taught The hand to practice best the lenient art, To which thou gavest thy laborious days, And last, thy life. And, therefore, when the earth Received thee, tears were in unyielding eyes, And on hard cheeks, and they who deemed thy skill Delayed their death hour, shuddered and turned pale When thou wert gone. This faltering verse which thou Shalt not, as wont, o'erlook, is all I have To offer at thy grave,--this--and the hope To copy thy example, and to leave A name of which the wretched shall not think As of an enemy's, whom they forgive As all forgive the dead. Rest, therefore, thou Whose early guidance trained my infant steps-- Rest, on the bosom of God, till the brief sleep Of Death is over--and a happier life Shall dawn to waken thine insensible dust!"