Page:Genius, and other essays.djvu/132

GENIUS AND OTHER ESSAYS

The dripping woods, and o'er the plashy fields,

Roaming and sorrowing still, like one who makes

The journey of life alone, and nowhere meets

A welcome or a friend, and still goes on

In darkness.

The pieces to which we have alluded, as the longest in the book, "Sella" and "The Little Children of the Snow," as well as the translation from Homer, are also in blank verse. The first two, in their pure, artistic interest, present a marked contrast to that rhythmical essay, "The Ages," which is the first in date and extent, and the least in value, of Mr. Bryant's former productions.

"Sella" occupies thirty-two delicious pages. It is a story of

of a maiden living near a streamlet whose current had a mystic charm to woo her. She haunted some lake or river from morn till night, loving the waters, and yearning for a knowledge of the great sea. One day a marvellous pair of slippers, inscribed with her name, are found upon the streamlet's brink. When she puts them on she can fearlessly plunge beneath the current, and follow its windings to the ocean, in whose recesses she meets, and learns to love, the blissful creatures of the deep. She returns to her cottage-home; but as time rolls on her absences are frequent and longer. At last her brothers resolve to stop such practices, [118]