"Shout, Hellas, shout! the lord of joy is come, Bearing the mortal Lethe in his hands, To wake the wailing lips of Sorrow dumb, To bind sad Memory's eyes with rosy bands: Io, io, Bacche!"
In the _Song of the Earth_, which shows a higher exercise of the poetic faculty than any thing else Mr. Boker has written, he has enriched the language with a new form of versification. Except in this poem, we do not remember ever to have seen _dactylic_ blank verse attempted in the English language. The majestic and resonant harmonies of the measure are strikingly adapted to the poet's theme. The concluding _Chorus of Stars_, rebuking the Earth for her pride as the dwelling-place of the human soul, is a splendid effort of the imagination. We know not where to find surpassed the sounding sweep of the rhythm in the final lines:
"Heir of eternity, Mother of Souls, Let not thy knowledge betray thee to folly! Knowledge is proud, self-sufficient, and lone, Trusting, unguided, its steps in the darkness. Thine is the wisdom that mankind may win, Gleaned in the pathway between joy and sorrow; Ours is the wisdom that hallows the child Fresh from the touch of his awful Creator, Dropped like a star on thy shadowy realm, Falling in splendor, but falling to darken. Ours is the simple religion of Faith, Trusting alone in the God who o'errules us; Thine are the complex misgivings of Doubt, Wrested to form by imperious Reason. _Knowledge is restless, imperfect, and sad; Faith is serene, and completed, and joyful._ Bow in humility, bow thy proud forehead, Circle thy form with a mantle of clouds, _Hide from the glittering cohorts of evening, Wheeling in purity, singing in chorus: Howl in the depths of thy lone, barren mountains, Restlessly moan on the deserts of ocean, Wail o'er thy fall in the desolate forests, Lost star of Paradise, straying alone!_"
In the flush of youth, fortunate in all the relations of life, and with a fame already secured, there is perhaps no American author to whom the future promises more than to Mr. Boker. He has that faithful reverence for his art which makes harmless the breath of praise, more dangerous to the poet than that of censure, and there are yet many years before him ere his mind attains its full scope and stature. That all these promises may be fulfilled, to his own honor and that of American literature, is the earnest hope of