Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/111

 1830-40.] OT WAY CURRY. 95 the indwelling soul preludes the feast of immortal joys. No petty ambitions, no goading desires for name and fame among the great of earth, ever soiled the bosom of our friend. To move qui- etly in his accustomed round of prescribed duties — to enjoy the communion of chosen and congenial minds — to yield himself up to the manifold enchantments of inspiring nature — to utter in verso, smooth and musical as his favorite streams, the live thoughts of the passing moments, made up the sum of his daily happiness ; and if a shade of sadness, as of some secret and acknowledged sorrow, bordered the placid beauty of existence, it only added tenderness to the hearts of those who knew and loved him, and made them more eager to minister to his simple and unadulterated pleasures. Mr. Curry's sorrow was softened by sublime faith. He traced the departed good in all the charms of "saints made perfect," into the heavenly world. He believed, with Milton, that " Millions of spirits walk the earth unseen, Both when we wake and when we sleep, " and that those who loved us in life bear their love into heaven, and often come down from their bhssful seats to be our " ministering spirits on earth." It is a beautiful faith, which we would not disturb. He felt the light of an endless morning, and dwelt in the vicinity of heaven. He was like one in a cavern, speaking up the shaft to loved ones listening in the light above. With all his imagination he was a man of safe and sober judgment. His life shows that he could unite the practical with the poetical. As an agriculturist, a mechanic, a legislator, an editor, and a lawyer, he was respectable ; as a critic and a poet, he was more. When we consider that, although he entered upon life without property, education, or the interest of leading friends, and never enjoyed a lucrative office or made a fortunate speculation, yet sustained and educated his family reputably, and responded to the calls of charity and religion, we must concede that his mind was well balanced. There is nothing eccentric in his character, nothing wonderful in his deeds or suffisr- ings ; he moved in obedience to the ordinary laws of the human mind, and experi- enced the common lot of good men. His life began in melody, progressed in conflict, but closed in peace ; we know nothing in it that might not be written in an epic. His writings also are pure ; they contain nothing which might not safely be read by all men. They may not present us with any thing sublime, neither do they with any thing absurd or trilling ; their chief fault, perhaps, is their want of variety. Most of them were the productions of his youth, written in the intervals of daily toil.* Mr. Curry's chief characteristic was his taste. His mind was in harmony with nature ; he had a relish for all beauty. To him it was not in vain that God painted the landscape green, cast the channels of the streams in graceful curves, lighted up the arch of night, and turned the gates of the day on golden hinges amid the anthems of a grateful world. No thirst for wealth, no conflict for honor, no lust of meaner pleasures destroyed his sensibility to the harmonies and proportions of the universe. From a child he was fond of nature and solitude ; as he grew up poets were his com- panions ; with them he sympathized ; with them he sat, side by side, in the enchanted a Tale of Palestine." An elaborate poem, nearly completed, was lost a short time befoi-e Mr. Curry's death.
 * Several of his poems which have met most favor, were first, published as extracts, from " The Maniac Minstrel —