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been made to bring about this very desirable result. As a preliminary step, it is proposed to get the approval of those immediately interested, and your signature to the inclosed circular is therefore respectfully requested." This is signed " Wm. C. Bryant, Secretary of the British and American Copyright League." The "inclosed circular" is a brief declaration of approval of the efforts of the League to secure the passage of an international copyright law, and bears the signatures of Bryant, Longfellow, Emerson, Whittier, Garrison, Beecher, Holmes, Mrs. Stowe, Miss Alcott, Prof. Dana, Howells, Aldrich, and other well-known authors. This excellent beginning was made in 1873, but for some reason was not pushed to any practical outcome. It was, however, one of the signs of the change now becoming manifest. On Mr. Bryant's eightieth birthday he received a congratulatory letter with its thousands of signatures, sent from every State and Territory of his native land, followed soon after by the presentation, in Chickering Hall, New York, in the presence of a large and appreciative audience, of a superb silver vase, the gift of many hundred admirers in various portions of the country. This exquisite and valuable specimen of American silver work is now in the possession of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Standing before it, the spectator may fitly recall those noble lines of Keats upon a Grecian urn:

"When old age shall this generation waste

Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe

Than ours, a friend to men to whom thou sayest,
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty; that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'"

A few months later, the venerable poet presented to the citizens of Roslyn a new hall and public reading-room, having previously given one to his native town. It was the wish of his fellow-citizens that the handsome hall should be named in honor of Mr. Bryant; but as he proposed that it should be known simply as "The Hall," that title was bestowed upon it by popular acclamation.

The "Centennial Ode," written by Bryant for the opening of the International Exposition at Philadelphia, is worthy of the great fame of its author. Another of his recent compositions, and one of his noblest, elicited from a prominent foreign journal the following mention: "The venerable American poet, who was born before Keats, and who has seen so many tides of influence sweep over the literature of his own country and of England, presents us here with a short but very noble and characteristic poem, which carries a singular weight with it as embodying the reflection of a very old man of genius on the mutability of all things, and the hurrying tide of years that cover the past as with a flood of waters. In a vein that reminds us of Thanatopsis,' the grand symphonic blank verse of which was published no less than sixty-one years ago, Mr. Bryant reviews the mortal life of man as the ridge of a wave ever hurrying to oblivion the forms that appear on its surface for a moment." In this worthy companion to "Thanatopsis," written in his eighty-second year, the poet strikes the old familiar key-note that he took so successfully in his greatest poem in 1812, in "The Ages" in 1821, and again in "Among the Trees" in 1874. It originally appeared in Scribner's Magazine, and was subsequently pub

lished by the Putnams as a holiday gift-book in beautiful form, artistically illustrated by Linton, the famous engraver, from his own designs. It is also contained in Appleton's editions of Bryant's poems. It is entitled "The Flood of Years."

'A MIGHTY HAND, from an exhaustless urn,
Pours forth the never ending Flood of Years
Among the nations. How the rushing waves
Bear all before them! On their foremost edge,
And there alone, is Life; the Present there
Tosses and foams and fills the air with roar
Of mingled noises. There are they who toil,
And they who strive, and they who feast, and they
Who hurry to and fro. The sturdy hind-
Woodman and delver with the spade-are there,
And busy artisan beside his bench,

And pallid student with his written roll.

A moment on the mounting billow seen

The flood sweeps over them and they are gone.
There groups of revelers, whose brows are twined
With roses, ride the topmost swell awhile,
And as they raise their flowing cups to touch
The clinking brim to brim, are whirled beneath
The waves and disappear. I hear the jar
Of beaten drums, and thunders that break forth
From cannon, where the advancing billow sends
Up to the sight long files of armed men,
That hurry to the charge through flame and smoke.
The torrent bears them under, whelmed and hid,
Slayer and slain, in heaps of bloody foam.
Down go the steed and rider; the plumed chief
Sinks with his followers; the head that wears

The imperial diadem goes down beside

The felon's with cropped ear and branded cheek.
A funeral train--the torrent sweeps away
Bearers and bier and mourners. By the bed

Of one who dies men gather sorrowing,
And women weep aloud; the flood rolls on;
The wail is stifled, and the sobbing group
Borne under. Hark to that shrill sudden shout-

The cry of an applauding multitude

Swayed by some loud-tongued orator who wields
The living mass, as if he were its soul.

The waters choke the shout and all is still.

Lo, next, a kneeling crowd and one who spreads

The hands in prayer; the engulfing wave o'ertakes
And swallows them and him. A sculptor wields
The chisel, and the stricken marble grows

To beauty; at his easel, eager-eyed,

A painter stands, and sunshine, at his touch,
Gathers upon the canvas, and life glows;

A poet, as he paces to and fro,

Murmurs his sounding line. Awhile they ride

The advancing billow, till its tossing crest
Strikes them and flings them under while their tasks
Are yet unfinished. See a mother smile

On her young babe that smiles to her again—
The torrent wrests it from her arms; she shrieks,
And weeps, and midst her tears is carried down.
A beam like that of moonlight turns the spray
To glistening pearls; two lovers, hand in hand,
Rise on the billowy swell and fondly look
Into each other's eyes. The rushing flood

Flings them apart; the youth goes down; the maid,
With hands outstretched in vain and streaming eyes,
Waits for the next high wave to follow him.

An aged man succeeds; his bending form
Sinks slowly; mingling with the sullen stream
Gleam the white locks and then are seen no more.
Lo, wider grows the stream; a sea-like flood
Saps earth's walled cities; massive palaces
Crumble before it; fortresses and towers
Dissolve in the swift waters; populous realms,
Swept by the torrent, see their ancient tribes
Engulfed and lost, their very languages
Stifled and never to be uttered more.

I pause and turn my eyes, and, looking back,
Where that tumultuous flood has passed, I see
The silent Ocean of the Past, a waste

Of waters weltering over graves, its shores

Strewn with the wreck of fleets, where mast and hull

Drop away piecemeal; battlemented walls

Frown idly, green with moss, and temples stand

Unroofed, forsaken by the worshipers.

There lie memorial stones, whence time has gnawed
The graven legends, thrones of kings o'erturned,

The broken altars of forgotten gods,
Foundations of old cities and long streets
Where never fall of human foot is heard
Upon the desolate pavement. I behold
Dim glimmerings of lost jewels far within
The sleeping waters, diamond, sardonyx,
Ruby and topaz, pearl and chrysolite,
Once glittering at the banquet on fair brows
That long ago were dust; and all around,
Strewn on the waters of that silent sea,
Are withering bridal wreaths, and glossy locks
Shorn from fair brows by loving hands, and scrolls
O'erwritten-haply with fond words of love
And vows of friendship—and fair pages flung
Fresh from the printer's engine. There they lie

A moment and then sink away from sight.

I look, and the quick tears are in my eyes,

For I behold, in every one of these,
A blighted hope, a separate history

Of human sorrow, telling of dear ties
Suddenly broken, dreams of happiness
Dissolved in air, and happy days, too brief,

That sorrowfully ended, and I think

How painfully must the poor heart have beat

In bosoms without number, as the blow

Was struck that slew their hope or broke their peace.

Sadly I turn, and look before, where yet

The Flood must pass, and I behold a mist

Where swarm dissolving forms, the brood of Hope,
Divinely fair, that rest on banks of flowers

Or wander among rainbows, fading soon
And reappearing, haply giving place

To shapes of grisly aspect, such as Fear
Moulds from the idle air; where serpents lift
The head to strike, and skeletons stretch forth
The bony arm in menace. Further on
A belt of darkness seems to bar the way,
Long, low and distant, where the Life that Is
Touches the Life to come. The Flood of Years
Rolls toward it, nearer and nearer.
It must pass
That dismal barrier. What is there beyond?
Hear what the wise and good have said Beyond
That belt of darkness still the years roll on
More gently, but with not less mighty sweep.
They gather up again and softly bear

All the sweet lives that late were overwhelmed
And lost to sight-all that in them was good,
Noble, and truly great and worthy of love-
The lives of infants and ingenuous youths,
Sages and saintly women who have made
Their households happy-all are raised and borne
By that great current on its onward sweep,
Wandering and rippling with caressing waves
Around green islands, fragrant with the breath
Of flowers that never wither. So they pass,
From stage to stage, along the shining course
Of that fair river broadening like a sea.
As its smooth eddies curl along their way,
They bring old friends together; hands are clasped
In joy unspeakable; the mother's arms
Again are folded round the child she loved
And lost. Old sorrows are forgotten now,
Or but remembered to make sweet the hour
That overpays them; wounded hearts that bled
Or broke are healed forever. In the room
Of this grief-shadowed Present there shall be
A Present in whose reign no grief shall gnaw
The heart, and never shall a tender tie
Be broken-in whose reign the eternal Change
That waits on growth and action shall proceed
With everlasting Concord hand in hand."

A gentleman who had been recently bereaved was so struck by the unquestioning faith in immortality expressed in the concluding lines of this poem that he wrote to the poet, asking if they represented his own belief. Mr. Bryant answered him in the following note, dated Cummington, August 10th, 1876: "Certainly I believe all that is said in the lines you have quoted. If I had not, I could not have written them. I believe in the everlasting life of the soul; and it seems to me that immortality would be but an imperfect gift without the recognition in the life to come of those who are dear to us here."

If the harmony of the poet's career was sustained in his writings and his love of art, it was further manifested in the taste and affection which governed him in the selection of his homes. Like the historian Prescott, Bryant had three residencesa town-house and two country homes. One of these is near the picturesque village of Roslyn, Long Island, and commands a view which in its varied aspect takes in a mingled scene of outspreading land and water. The mansion, embosomed in trees and vines, an ample dwelling-place situated at the top of the hills, was built by Richard Kirk in 1781. Mr. Bryant, who was ever mindful of the injunction given by the dying Scotch laird to his son, "Be aye sticking in a tree, Jock: it will be growing while ye are sleeping," alternated recreations of tree planting and pruning and other rural occupations with his literary labor. Not extensive, but excellent in wide and judicious selections, was his library of several thousand volumes. The poet's knowledge of ancient and living languages enabled him to add with advantage to his collection of books the works of the best French, German, Italian, and Spanish authors. Among his poems may be found admirable translations from these various languages as well as from the Greek and Latin.

As I was

The poet's country-seat at Roslyn, called "Cedarmere," has been the resort of many distinguished men of art and literature, of travelers and statesmen, gone thither to pay their respects to the sage, philosopher, and author. They were always welcomed, and enjoyed the purity of taste and simplicity of manner which presided over the mansion. Here the venerable host continued to the last to enjoy the society of his friends; and here much of his best literary work had been done since his purchase of the place in 1845. He was accustomed to spend most of the time there from May to the end of November of each year, excepting the months of August and September, which were given to the old Homestead at Cummington. Cedarmere is an extensive estate, and rich in a great variety of trees. walking on a sunny October afternoon with the poet through his loved domain, he pointed out a Spanish chestnut-tree laden with fruit, and, springing lithely on a fence despite his seventy-six summers, caught an open burr hanging from one of the lower branches, opened it, and, jumping down with the agility of a youth, handed to his city guest the contents, consisting of two as large chestnuts as I ever saw in Spain. The Madeira and Pecan nuts were also successfully cultivated by him at Cedarmere. During another walk, Mr. Bryant gave a jump and caught the branch of a tree with his hands, and, after swinging backward and forward several times with his feet raised, he swung himself over a fence without touching it.