nd necessary in effecting the impression. The
fact is, that perseverance is one thing and genius quite another--nor
can all the Quarterlies in Christendom confound them. By and by, this
proposition, with many which I have been just urging, will be received
as self-evident. In the meantime, by being generally condemned as
falsities, they will not be essentially damaged as truths.

On the other hand, it is clear that a poem may be improperly brief.
Undue brevity degenerates into mere epigrammatism. A _very_ short poem,
while now and then producing a brilliant or vivid, never produces a
profound or enduring effect. There must be the steady pressing down of
the stamp upon the wax. De Beranger has wrought innumerable things,
pungent and spirit-stirring, but in general they have been too
imponderous to stamp themselves deeply into the public attention, and
thus, as so many feathers of fancy, have been blown aloft only to be
whistled down the wind.

A remarkable instance of the effect of undue brevity in depressing a
poem, in keeping it out of the popular view, is afforded by the
following exquisite little Serenade:

I arise from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night
When the winds are breathing low,
And the stars are shining bright.
I arise from dreams of thee,
And a spirit in my feet
Has led me--who knows how?--
To thy chamber-window, sweet!

The wandering airs they faint
On the dark the silent stream--
The champak odors fail
Like sweet thoughts in a dream;
The nightingale's complaint,
It dies upon her heart,
As I must die on thine,
O, beloved as thou art!

O, lift me from the grass!
I die, I faint, I fail!
Let thy love in kisses rain
On my lips and eyelids pale.
My cheek is cold and white, alas!
My heart beats loud and fast:
O, press it close to thine again,
Where it will break at last!

Very few perhaps are familiar with these lines, yet no less a poet than
Shelley is their author. Their warm, yet delicate and ethereal
imagination will be appreciated by all, but by none so thoroughly as by
him who has himself arisen from sweet dreams of one beloved to bathe in
the aromatic air of a southern midsummer night.

One of the finest poems by Willis, the very best in my opinion which he
has ever written, has no doubt, through this same defect of undue
brevity, been kept back from its proper position, not less in the
critical