"In the autumn of 1863, we visited Mr. and Mrs. Bryant at West
Point, where they occupied Mr. John Bigelow's charming cottage,
'The Squirrels.' From there we accompanied them to Roslyn, and
spent a week under their own roof-tree. How much we enjoyed those
days, I need not say. Mrs. Bryant's health was very delicate, and
she sat much in her large arm-chair by the open wood-fire which
blazed under the old tiles of the chimney-place. Mr. Bryant sat at
her feet when he read in the autumn twilight those exquisite lines,
'The Life that Is.' Such was our last meeting with our dear Mrs.
Bryant. I never saw her again, but the thought of her dwells like a
sweet strain of music amid the varied notes of human life, and will
be ours again when 'beyond these voices there is peace.' The union
between Mr. and Mrs. Bryant was a poem of the tenderest rhythm. Any
of us who remember Mr. Bryant's voice when he said 'Frances' will
join in his hope that she kept the same beloved name in heaven. I
remember alluding to those exquisite lines, 'The Future Life,' to
Mrs. Bryant, and her replying, 'Oh, my dear, I am always sorry for
any one who sees me after reading those lines, they must be so
disappointed.' Beatrice and Laura have not received such tributes
from their poets, for Mrs. Bryant's husband was her poet and her
lover at seventy as at seventeen."
After Mrs. Bryant had been dead seven years, Mr. Bryant wrote the
following poem, showing how tenderly he cherished her memory:--
The morn hath not the glory that it wore,
Nor doth the day so beautifully die,
Since I can call thee to my side no more,
To gaze upon the sky.
For thy dear hand, with each return of Spring,
I sought in sunny nooks the flowers she gave;
I seek them still, and sorrowfully bring
The choicest to thy grave.
Here, where I sit alone, is sometimes heard,
From the great world, a whisper of my name,
Joined, haply, to some kind commending word,
By those whose praise is fame.
And then, as if I thought thou still wert nigh,
I turn me, half-forgetting thou art dead,
To read the gentle gladness in thine eye
That once I might have read.
I turn, but see thee not; before my eyes
The image of a hillside mound appears,
Where all of thee that passed not to the skies
Was laid with bitter tears.
And I, whose thoughts go back to happier days
That fled with thee, would gladly now resign
All that the world can give of fame or praise
For one sweet look of thine.
Thus ever, when I read of generous deeds,
Such words as thou didst once delight to hear,
My heart is wrung with anguish as it bleeds
To think thou art not near.
And now that I can talk no more with thee
Of ancient friends and days too fair to last,
A bitterness blends with the memory
Of all that happy past.
That past had, indeed, been happy and most successful from every worldly
point of view. He had published his poems, while still a young man, and
they had made him famous at once. For more than fifty years he was
honored as one of the first of the poets of America, and for a large
part of that time he was held as indisputably the first in rank. His
work received honors and commendation over the sea as well as at home,
almost from the first. It seems very curious to us now to think of his
selling the very finest of his poems for two dollars apiece; yet he did
that, and seemed satisfied with the compensation. In later life, when
two hundred dollars would have been gladly paid him for such poems, he
declined to write, saying that no man should write poetry in old age.
The greater part of his poetry was written before he went to New York
and became editor-in-chief of the "Evening Post." After that time he was
always driven by newspaper work and involved in political controversy,
and rarely wrote verses. In old age he made his translations of the
"Iliad" and the "Odyssey," which were very remarkable works for a man of
his years; but he seldom wrote an original poem, although what he did
write scarcely showed a falling off from the work of his prime.
He was very conscientious in his work as an editor, and was honored by
the entire nation for the noble and patriotic course he took at the time
of the anti-slavery excitement, and throughout the Civil war. Men will
long remember the brave and spirited utterances of his paper during that
time that so tried men's souls. He did much, during his long career as
an editor, for American literature, for American art, and for the
general culture of his countrymen. In his numerous visits to Europe he
learned much of the workings of the institutions of the Old World, and
gave his readers the benefit of his studies of the comparative merits of
Old and New World methods; and while always fair in his judgments, he
was always patriotic, and stood gallantly by his own land. He was much
honored while abroad, as well as at home, and made acquaintance with
many distinguished men in foreign lands. Mr. Bryant had been brought up
a Unitarian, and he maintained his connection with that church
throughout life. Many of his dearest friends were among the ministers of
that denomination, and he wrote many of his most beautiful hymns for
occasions connected with that church. He was always a devoutly religious
man, but grew even more so in later life. During a long sickness which
his wife had in Naples in 1858, his thoughts became more and more fixed
upon this subject; and meeting with an old friend there, the Rev. Mr.
Waterson, he opened his mind to him as perhaps he had never done to any
one before. Mr. Waterson tells us:--
"At this time I received a note from him stating that there was a
subject of interest upon which he would like to converse with me.
On the following day, the weather being delightful, we walked in
the Villa Reale, the royal park or garden, overlooking the Bay of
Naples. Never can I forget the beautiful spirit that breathed
through every word he uttered,--the reverent love, the confiding
trust, the aspiring hope, the rooted faith. Every thought, every
view, was generous and comprehensive. Anxiously watching, as he had
been doing, in that twilight boundary between this world and
another, over one more precious to him than life itself, the divine
truths and promises had come home to his mind with new power. He
said he had never united himself with the Church, which with his
present feelings he would most gladly do. He then asked if it would
be agreeable to me to come to his room on the morrow, and
administer the Communion,--adding that as he had not been baptized,
he desired that ordinance at the same time. The day following was
the Sabbath, and a most heavenly day. In fulfilment of his wishes,
in his own quiet room, a company of seven persons celebrated
together the Lord's Supper. With hymns, selections from the
Scripture, and devotional exercises, we went back in thought to the
large upper-room where Christ first instituted the Holy Supper in
the midst of his disciples. Previous to the breaking of bread,
William Cullen Bryant was baptized. With snow-white head and
flowing beard, he stood like one of the ancient prophets; and
never, perhaps, since the days of the Apostles, has a truer
disciple professed allegiance to the Divine Master."
A purer and nobler life than Mr. Bryant led has hardly been chronicled
in our day; and the quiet and calm of his closing years was a fitting
end to such a life. He was tenderly cared for during these years by his
daughters, to whom he was most devotedly attached. His son-in-law, Parke
Godwin, thus writes of the closing years:--
"It was very curious to his friends to observe how he had mellowed
with time. The irritabilities of his earlier days had been wholly
overcome; his reluctance to mingle with men was quite gone; and old
age, which makes so many of us exacting and crabbed, if not morose,
imparted to him additional gentleness and sweetness. He had learned
to live more and more in the happiness of others, and was rewarded
for his unconscious devotion by new streams of happiness constantly
opening in his bosom."
He even learned to take good-naturedly what had annoyed him a good deal
in an earlier time, namely, the results of his fame. He writes thus to a
friend in extreme old age:--
"Is there a penny-post, do you think, in the world to come? Do
people there write for autographs to those who have gained a little
notoriety? Do women there send letters asking for money? Do boys
persecute literary men with requests for a course of reading? Are
there offices in that sphere which are coveted, and to obtain which
men are pestered to write letters of recommendation? If anything of
this kind takes place in the spirit-world it may, perhaps, be of a
purgatorial nature, or perhaps be the fate of the incorrigible
sinner. Here on earth this discipline never ends; and if it exists
at all in the other world, it is of a kind which will, of course,
never cease. On this account I am inclined to believe that the
punishment for sin may be of endless duration; for here the
annoyances and miseries which I have mentioned only cease with
death, and in the other world, where there is no death, they will,
of course, never come to an end."