jects, and all of them are animated by a corresponding
spirit. Even his few domestic poems are not treated after that modern
manner, which moralizes in the last stanza, simply to let the reader
understand how well the poet knows his own meaning. Whatever is
beautiful in Mr. Stoddard's themes is distinctly brought forward, while
the darker side of his subject is scarcely touched upon. Take, for
example, a poem of great simplicity and tenderness, filled with a sorrow
so beautiful as almost to make one in love with grief, and contrast it
with a poem, on a similar subject, by Bayard Taylor:

"Along the grassy slope I sit,
And dream of other years;
My heart is full of soft regrets,
My eyes of tender tears!

The wild bees hummed about the spot,
The sheep-bells tinkled far,
Last year when Alice sat with me
Beneath the evening star!

The same sweet star is o'er me now,
Around, the same soft hours,
But Alice moulders in the dust
With all the last year's flowers!

I sit alone, and only hear
The wild bees on the steep,
And distant bells that seem to float
From out the folds of sleep!"

_Stoddard_, _page_ 116.

This is very fine and delicate feeling, softened down to the mildest
point of passion; but it does not at all resemble the frenzy of grief
which follows:

"Moan, ye wild winds! around the pane,
And fall, thou drear December rain!
Fill with your gusts the sullen day,
Tear the last clinging leaves away!
Reckless as yonder naked tree,
No blast of yours can trouble me.

Give me your chill and wild embrace,
And pour your baptism on my face;
Sound in mine ears the airy moan
That sweeps in desperate monotone,
Where on the unsheltered hill-top beat
The marches of your homeless feet!

Moan on, ye winds! and pour, thou rain!
Your stormy sobs and tears are vain,
If shed for her whose fading eyes
Will open soon on Paradise;
The eye of Heaven shall blinded be,
Or ere ye cease, if shed for me."

_Taylor_, _page_ 92.

What a desolation of wo! how the whole man is carried away in one
overwhelming passion! A contrast of the opening poems of these two
volumes, would be a pleasant employment, but their length forbids it.
Mr. Taylor's "Romance of the Maize" we have mentioned already; Mr.
Stoddard's "Castle in the Air" is its complete antithesis. The latter
poem