ston, Brainard, Mrs.
Osgood, and Miss Brooks? A few of them, to be sure, are remembered by an
occasional lyric,--Halleck by "Marco Bozzaris," a spirited ode in the
manner of Campbell; Pierpont by his ringing lines, "Warren's Address to
the American Soldiers;" Drake by "The American Flag," conventional but
not commonplace, and marked by one very imaginative line; and Allston by
two rather excellent lyrics, "Rosalie" and "America to Great Britain."
The first poet to accomplish work of high sustained excellence was
Bryant. His poetry, though never impassioned, is uniformly elegant. It
is often as chaste as Landor at his best. But it never surprises; it is
not emotional, personal, suggestively imaginative. In fact, Bryant's
muse is not lyrical. With the exception of Pinkney and Hoffman, whose
"Sparkling and Bright," if technically defective, is a true song, we
must wait for our lyric poet till we reach Edgar Allan Poe, the
greatest--one inclines to say the only--master of musical quality in
verse whom America has produced.

_The Wild Honeysuckle._--Philip Freneau, born in 1752, was a soldier in
the American Revolution. Though never rising quite into the highest
class of poets, he is our first genuine singer. "The Indian
Burying-ground" and "To a Honey-bee" are only less successful than the
graceful lines quoted.

_A Health._--Poe was an enthusiastic admirer of this poem. He pronounced
it, in his essay entitled "The Poetic Principle," "full of brilliancy
and spirit," and added: "It was the misfortune of Mr. Pinkney to have
been born too far south. Had he been a New Englander, it is probable
that he would have been ranked as the first of American lyrists by that
magnanimous cabal which has so long controlled the destinies of American
Letters, in conducting the thing called _The North American Review_."
This passage, very characteristic of Poe's criticisms, illustrates both
his championship of favorites, and unmerciful scourging of foes.

_Unseen Spirits._--The earnest sincerity, evident in every line of this
poem, removes it at once from the company of those gay society verses
sparkling with conceits which won for Willis the satiric comment of
Lowell in "A Fable for Critics:"

"There is Willis, all natty, and jaunty, and gay,
Who says his best things in so foppish a way,
With conceits and pet phrases so thickly o'erlaying 'em,
That one hardly knows whether to thank him for saying 'em;
Over-ornament ruins both p