The ancestry of William Cullen Bryant might have been inferred from the
character of his writings, which reflect whatever is best and noblest in
the life and thought of New England. It was a tradition that the first
Bryant of whom there is any account in the annals of the New World came
over in the Mayflower, but the tradition is not authenticated. What is
known of this gentleman, Mr. Stephen Bryant, is that he came over from
England, and that he was at Plymouth, Massachusetts, as early as 1632.
He married Abigail Shaw, who had emigrated with her father, and who bore
him several children between 1650 and 1665, it is to be presumed at
Plymouth, of which town he was chosen constable in 1663. Stephen Bryant
had a son named Ichabod, who was the father of Philip Bryant, who was
born in 1732. Philip Bryant married Silence Howard, the daughter of Dr.
Abiel Howard, of West Bridgewater, whose profession he adopted, being a
practitioner in medicine in North Bridgewater. He was the father of nine
children, one of whom, Peter Bryant, born in 1767, succeeded him in his
profession. Young Dr. Bryant became enamored of Miss Sarah Snell, the
daughter of Mr. Ebenezer Snell, of Bridgewater, who removed his family
to Cummington, whither he was followed by his future son-in-law, who
married the lady of his love in 1792. Two years later, on the 3d of
November, there was born to him a man-child, who was to win, and to
leave,
"One of the few immortal names
That were not born to die."
Dr. Bryant was proud of his profession; and in the hope, no doubt, that
his son would become a shining light therein, he perpetuated at his
christening the name of a great medical authority, who had departed this
life four years before--William Cullen. Dr. Bryant was the last of his
family to practise the healing art; for Nature, wiser than he, early
determined the future course of Master William Cullen Bryant. He was not
to be a doctor, but a poet. A poet, that is, if he lived to be anything;
for the chances were against his living at all. The lad was exceedingly
frail, and had a head the immensity of which troubled his anxious
father. How to reduce it to the normal size was a puzzle which Dr.
Bryant solved in a spring of clear, cold water, which burst out of the
ground on or near his homestead, and into which the child was immersed
every morning, head and all, by two of Dr. Bryant's students--kicking
lustily, we may be sure, at this matutinal dose of hydropathy.
William Cullen Bryant came of Mayflower stock, his mother being a
descendant of John Alden; and the characteristics of his family
included some of the sterner qualities of the Puritans. Grandfather
Snell was a magistrate, and, without doubt a severe one, for the period
was not one which favored leniency to criminals. The whipping-post was
still extant in Massachusetts, and the poet remembered that it stood
about a mile from his early home at Cummington, and that he once saw a
young fellow of eighteen who had received forty lashes as a punishment
for a theft he had committed. It was, he thought, the last example of
corporal punishment inflicted by law in that neighborhood, though the
whipping-post remained in its place for several years, a possible terror
to future evildoers. "Spare the rod, spoil the child," was the Draconian
code then; and the rod, in the shape of a little bundle of birchen
twigs, bound together with a small cord, was generally suspended on a
nail against the wall in the kitchen, and was as much a part of the
necessary furniture as the crane that hung in the fireplace or the
shovel and tongs.
Magistrate Snell was a disciplinarian of the stricter sort; and as he
and his wife resided with Dr. Bryant and his family, the latter stood in
awe of him, so much so that young William Cullen was prevented from
feeling anything like affection for him. It was an age of repression,
not to say oppression, for children, who had few rights that their
elders were bound to respect. To the terrors of the secular arm were
added the deeper terrors of the spiritual law, for the people of that
primitive period were nothing if not religious. The minister was the
great man, and his bodily presence was a restraint upon the unruly, and
the ruly too, for that matter. The lines of our ancestors did not fall
in pleasant places as far as recreations were concerned; for they were
few and far between, consisting, for the most part, of militia musters,
"raisings," corn-huskings, and singing-schools, diversified with the
making of maple sugar and cider. Education was confined to the three
R's, though the children of wealthy parents were sent to colleges as
they now are. It was not a genial social condition, it must be
confessed, to which William Cullen Bryant was born, though it might have
been worse but for his good father, who was in many respects superior to
his rustic neighbors. A broad-shouldered, muscular gentleman, proud of
his strength, his manners were gentle and reserved, his disposition was
serene, and he was fond of society. He was not without political
distinction, for he was elected to the Massachusetts House of
Representatives for several terms, and afterward to the State Senate,
and he associated with the cultivated circles of Boston both as a
legislator and a physician.
William Cullen Bryant was fortunate in his father, who, if he was
disappointed when he found that his son was born to be a follower of
Apollo and not of Æsculapius, kept his disappointment to himself, and
encouraged the lad in his poetical attempts. We have the authority of
the poet himself that his father taught his youth the art of verse, and
that he offered him to the Muses in the bud of life. His first efforts
were several clever "Enigmas," in imitation of the Latin writers, a
translation from Horace, and a copy of verses which were written in his
twelfth year, to be recited at the close of the winter school, "in the
presence of the Master, the Minister of the parish, and a number of
private gentlemen." They were printed on the 18th of March, 1807, in the
_Hampshire Gazette_, from which these particulars are derived, and which
was favored with other contributions from the pen of "C. B."
The juvenile poems of William Cullen Bryant are as clever as those of
Chatterton, Pope, and Cowley; but they are in no sense original, and it
would have been strange if they had been. There was no original writing
in America at the time they were written; and if there had been, it
would hardly have commended itself to the old-fashioned taste of Dr.
Bryant, to whom Pope was still a power in poetry, as Addison, no doubt,
was in prose. It was natural, therefore, that he should offer his boy to
the strait-laced Muses of Queen Anne's time; that the precocious boy
should lisp in heroic couplets, and that he should endeavor to be
satirical. Politics were running high in the first decade of the present
century, and the favorite bug-bear in New England was President
Jefferson, who in 1807 had laid an embargo on American shipping, in
consequence of the decrees of Napoleon, and the British orders in
council in relation thereto. This act was denounced, and by no one more
warmly than by Master Bryant, who made it the subject of a satire, which
was published in Boston in 1808. It was entitled "The Embargo; or,
Sketches of the Times," and was printed for the purchasers, who were
found in sufficient numbers to exhaust the first edition. It is said to
have been well received, but doubts were expressed as to whether the
author was really a youth of thirteen. His friends came to his rescue in
an "Advertisement," which was prefixed to a second edition of his
little _brochure_, published in the following year, and certified to his
age from their personal knowledge of himself and his family. They also
certified to his extraordinary talents, though they should prefer to
have him judged by his works, without favor or affection. They concluded
by stating that the printer was authorized to disclose their names and
places of residence.
The early poetical exercises of William Cullen Bryant, like those of all
young poets, were colored by the books which he read. Among these were
the works of Pope, as I have already intimated, and, no doubt, the works
of Cowper and Thomson. The latter, if they were in the library of Dr.
Bryant, do not appear to have impressed his son at this time; nor,
indeed, does any English poet except Pope, so far as we can judge from
his contributions to the _Hampshire Gazette_, which were continued from
time to time. They were bookish and patriotic; one, which was written at
Cummington on the 8th of January, 1810, being "The Genius of Columbia;"
and another, "An Ode for the Fourth of July, 1812," to the tune of "Ye
Gentlemen of England." These productions are undeniably clever, but they
are not characteristic of their writer, nor of the nature which
surrounded his birthplace, with which he was familiar, and of which he
was a close observer, as his poetry was soon to disclose.
He entered Williams College, in Williamstown, Mass., in his sixteenth
year, and remained there until 1812, distinguishing himself for aptness
and industry in classical learning and polite literature. At the end of
two years he withdrew, and commenced the study of law, first with Judge
Howe, of Worthington, and afterward with Mr. William Baylies, of
Bridgewater. So far he had written nothing but clever amateur verse; but
now, in his eighteenth year, he wrote an imperishable poem. The
circumstances under which it was composed have been variously stated,
but they agree in the main particulars, and are thus given in "The
Bryant Homestead Book" (1870), apparently on authentic information: "It
was here at Cummington, while wandering in the primeval forests, over
the floor of which were scattered the gigantic trunks of fallen trees,
mouldering for long years, and suggesting an indefinitely remote
antiquity, and where silent rivulets crept along through the carpet of
dead leaves, the spoil of thousands of summers, that the poem entitled
'Thanatopsis' was composed. The young poet had read the poems of Kirke
White, which, edited by Southey, were published about that time, and a
small volume of Southey's miscellaneous poems; and some lines of those
authors had kindled his imagination, which, going forth over the face of
the inhabitants of the globe, sought to bring under one broad and
comprehensive view the destinies of the human race in the present life,
and the perpetual rising and passing away of generation after generation
who are nourished by the fruits of its soil, and find a resting-place in
its bosom." We should like to know what lines in Southey and Kirke White
suggested "Thanatopsis," that they might be printed in letters of gold
hereafter.
When the young poet quitted Cummington to begin his law studies, he left
the manuscript of this incomparable poem among his papers in the house
of his father, who found it after his departure. "Here are some lines
that our William has been writing," he said to a lady to whom he showed
them. She read them, and, raising her eyes to the face of Dr. Bryant,
burst into tears--a tribute to the genius of his son in which he was not
ashamed to join. Blackstone bade his Muse a long adieu before he turned
to wrangling courts and stubborn law; and our young lawyer intended to
do the same (for poetry was starvation in America seventy years ago),
but habit and nature were too strong for him. There is no difficulty in
tracing the succession of his poems, and in a few instances the places
where they were written, or with which they concerned themselves.
"Thanatopsis," for example, was followed by "The Yellow Violet," which
was followed by the "Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood," and the
song beginning "Soon as the glazed and gleaming snow." The exquisite
lines "To a Waterfowl" were written at Bridgewater, in his twentieth
year, where he was still pursuing the study of law, which appears to
have been distasteful to him. The concluding stanza sank deeply into a
heart that needed its pious lesson:
"He who, from zone to zone,
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
_In the long way that I must tread alone,_
_Will lead my steps aright._"
The lawyer-poet had a long way before him, but he did not tread it
alone; for, after being admitted to the bar in Plymouth, and practising
for a time in Plainfield, near Cummington, he removed to Great
Barrington, in Berkshire, where he saw the dwelling of the Genevieve of
his chilly little "Song," his Genevieve being Miss Frances Fairchild of
that beautiful town, whom he married in his twenty-seventh year, and who
was the light of his household for nearly half a century. It was to her,
the reader may like to know, that he addressed the ideal poem beginning
"O fairest of the rural maids" (_circa_ 1825), "The Future Life" (1837),
and "The Life that Is" (1858); and her memory and her loss are tenderly
embalmed in one of the most touching of his later poems, "October,
1866."
"Thanatopsis" was sent to the _North American Review_ (whether by its
author or his father we are not told), and with such a modest, not to
say enigmatical, note of introduction, that its authorship was left in
doubt. The _Review_ was managed by a club of young literary gentlemen,
who styled themselves "The North American Club," two of whose members,
Mr. Richard Henry Dana and Mr. Edward Tyrrel Channing, were considered
its editors. Mr. Dana read the poem carefully, and was so surprised at
its excellence that he doubted whether it was the production of an
American, an opinion in which his associates are understood to have
concurred. While they were hesitating about its acceptance, he was told
that the writer was a member of the Massachusetts Senate; and, the
Senate being then in session, he started immediately from Cambridge for
Boston. He reached the State House, and inquired for Senator Bryant. A
tall, middle-aged man, with a business-like look, was pointed out to
him. He was satisfied that he could not be the poet he sought, so he
posted back to Cambridge without an introduction. The story ends here,
and rather tamely; for the original narrator forgot, or perhaps never
knew, that Dr. Bryant was a member of the Senate, and that it was among
the possibilities that _he_ was the Senator with a similar name.
American poetry may be said to have commenced in 1817 with the September
number of the _North American Review_, which contained "Thanatopsis" and
the "Inscription for the Entrance of a Wood," the last being printed as
a "Fragment." Six months later, in March, 1818, the impression which
"Thanatopsis" created was strengthened by the appearance of the lines
"To a Waterfowl," and the "Version of a Fragment of Simonides."
Mr. Bryant's literary life may now be said to have begun, though he
depended upon the practice of his profession for his daily bread. He
continued his contributions to the _North American Review_ in the shape
of prose papers on literary topics, and maintained the most friendly
relations with its conductors; notably so with Mr. Dana, who was seven
years his elder, and who possessed, like himself, the accomplishment of
verse. At the suggestion of this poetical and critical brother, he was
invited to deliver a poem before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Harvard
College--an honor which is offered only to those who have already made a
reputation, and are likely to reflect credit on the Society as well as
on themselves. He accepted, and in 1821 wrote his first poem of any
length, "The Ages," which still remains the best poem of the kind that
was ever recited before a college society either in this country or in
England; grave, stately, thoughtful, presenting in animated,
picturesque stanzas a compact summary of the history of mankind. A young
Englishman of twenty-one--Thomas Babington Macaulay--delivered in the
same year a poem on "Evening," before the students of Trinity College,
Cambridge; and it is instructive to compare his conventional heroics
with the spirited Spenserian stanzas of William Cullen Bryant.
The lines "To a Waterfowl," which were written at Bridgewater in 1815,
were followed by "Green River," "A Winter Piece," "The West Wind," "The
Burial-Place," "Blessed are they that mourn," "No man knoweth his
Sepulchre," "A Walk at Sunset," and "The Hymn to Death."
These poems, which cover a period of six busy years, are interesting to
the poetic student as examples of the different styles of their writer,
and of the changing elements of his thoughts and feelings. "Green
River," for example, is a momentary revealment of his shy temperament
and his daily pursuits. Its glimpses of nature are charming, and his
wish to be beside its waters is the most natural one in the world. The
young lawyer is not complimentary to his clients, whom he styles "the
dregs of men," while his pen, which does its best to serve them, becomes
"a barbarous pen." He is dejected, but a visit to the river will restore
his spirits; for, as he gazes upon its lonely and lovely stream,
"An image of that calm life appears
That won my heart in my greener years."
"A Winter Piece" is a gallery of woodland pictures which anything of the
kind in the language. "A Walk at Sunset" is notable in that it is the
first poem in which we see (faintly, it must be confessed) the
aboriginal element, which was soon to become a prominent one in Mr.
Bryant's poetry. It was inseparable from the primeval forests of the New
World, but he was the first to perceive its poetic value. The "Hymn to
Death"--stately, majestic, consolatory--concludes with a touching
tribute to the worth of his good father, who died while he was writing
it, at the age of fifty-four. The year 1821 was an important one to Mr.
Bryant, for it witnessed the publication of his first collection of
verse, his marriage, and the death of his father.
The next four years of Mr. Bryant's life were more productive than any
that had preceded them, for he wrote upward of thirty poems during that
time. The aboriginal element was creative in "The Indian Girl's Lament,"
"An Indian Story," "An Indian at the Burial-Place of his Fathers," and,
noblest of all, "Monument Mountain;" the Hellenic element predominated
in "The Massacre at Scio" and "The Song of the Greek Amazon;" the
Hebraic element touched him lightly in "Rizpah" and the "Song of the
Stars;" and the pure poetic element was manifest in "March," "The
Rivulet" (which, by the way, ran through the grounds of the old
homestead at Cummington), "After a Tempest," "The Murdered Traveler,"
"Hymn to the North Star," "A Forest Hymn," "O fairest of the rural
maids," and the exquisite and now most pathetic poem, "June." These
poems and others not specified here, if read continuously and in the
order in which they were composed, show a wide range of sympathies, a
perfect acquaintance with many measures, and a clear, capacious,
ever-growing intellect. They are all distinctive of the genius of their
author, but neither exhibits the full measure of his powers. We can say
of none of them, "The man who wrote this will never write any better."
The publication of Mr. Bryant's little volume of verse was indirectly
the cause of his adopting literature as a profession. It was warmly
commended, and by no one more so than by Mr. Gulian C. Verplanck, in the
columns of the _New York American_. He was something of a literary
authority at the time, a man of fortune and college-bred, known in a
mild way as the author of an anniversary discourse delivered before the
New York Historical Society in 1818, of a political satire entitled "The
Bucktail Bards," and later of an "Essay on the Doctrine of Contracts."
Among his friends was Mr. Henry D. Sedgwick, a summer neighbor, so to
speak, of Mr. Bryant's, having a country-house at Stockbridge, a few
miles from Great Barrington, and a house in town, which was frequented
by the _literati_ of the day, such as Verplanck, Halleck, Percival,
Cooper, and others of less note. An admirer of Mr. Bryant, Mr. Sedgwick
set to work, with the assistance of Mr. Verplanck, to procure him
literary employment in New York, in order to enable him to escape his
hated bondage to the law; and he was appointed assistant editor of a
projected periodical called the _New York Review and Athenæum Magazine_.
The at last enfranchised lawyer dropped his barbarous pen, closed his
law-books, and in the winter or spring of 1825 removed with his
household to New York. The projected periodical was started, as these
sanguine ventures always are, with fair hopes of success. It was well
edited, and its contributors were men of acknowledged ability. The June
number contained two poems which ought to have made a great hit. One was
"A Song of Pitcairn's Island;" the other was "Marco Bozzaris." There was
no flourish of trumpets over them, as there would be now; the writers
merely prefixed their initials, "B." and "H." The reading public of New
York were not ready for the _Review_, which had been projected for their
mental enlightenment; so, after about a year's struggle, it was merged
in the _New York Literary Gazette_, which began its mission about four
years before. This magazine shared the fate of its companion in a few
months, when it was consolidated with the _United States Literary
Gazette_, which in two months was swallowed up in the _United States
Review_. The honor of publishing and finishing the last was shared by
Boston and New York. Profit in these publications there was none, though
Bryant, Halleck, Willis, Dana, Bancroft, and Longfellow wrote for them.
Too good, or not good enough, they lived and died prematurely. Mr.
Bryant's success as a metropolitan man of letters was not brilliant so
far; but there were other walks than those of pure literature open to
him, as to others, and into one of the most bustling of these he entered
in his thirty-second year. In other words, he became one of the editors
of the _Evening Post_. Henceforth he was to live by journalism.
Journalism, though an exacting pursuit, leaves its skillful followers a
little leisure in which to cultivate literature. It the heyday of those
ephemeral trifles, Annuals, and Mr. Bryant found time to edit one, with
the assistance of his friend Mr. Verplanck, and his acquaintance Mr.
Robert C. Sands (who, by the way, was one of the editors of the
_Commercial Advertiser_), and a very creditable work it was. His
contributions to "The Talisman" included some of his best poems. Poetry
was the natural expression of his genius--a fact which he could never
understand, for it always seemed to him that prose was the natural
expression of all mankind. His prose was, and always continued to be,
masterly. Its earliest examples, outside of his critical papers in the
_North American Review_ and other periodicals (and outside of the
_Evening Post_, of course), are two stories entitled "Medfield" and "The
Skeleton's Cave," contributed by him to "Tales of the Glauber Spa"
(1832)--a collection of original stories by Mr. James K. Paulding, Mr.
Verplanck, Mr. Sands, Mr. William Leggett, and Miss Catharine Sedgwick.
Three years before (1828) he had become the chief editor of the _Evening
Post_. Associated with him was Mr. Leggett, who had shown some talent as
a writer of sketches and stories, and who had failed, like himself, in
conducting a critical publication, for which his countrymen were not
ready. He made a second collection of his poems at this time (1832), a
copy of which was sent by Mr. Verplanck to Mr. Washington Irving, who
was then, what he had been for years, the idol of English readers, and
not without weight with the Trade. Would he see if some English house
would not reprint it? No leading publisher nibbled at it, not even
Murray, who was Mr. Irving's publisher; but an obscure bookseller named
Andrews finally agreed to undertake it, if Mr. Irving would put his
valuable name on the title-page as the editor. He was not acquainted
with Mr. Bryant, but he was a kind-hearted, large-souled gentleman, who
knew good poetry when he saw it, and he consented to "edit" the book. He
was not a success in the estimation of Andrews, who came to him one day,
by no means a merry Andrew, and declared that the book would ruin him
unless one or more changes were made in the text. What was amiss in it?
He turned to the "Song of Marion's Men," and stumbled over an obnoxious
couplet in the first stanza:
"The British soldier trembles
When Marion's name is told."
"That won't do at all, you know." The absurdity of the objection must
have struck the humorist comically; but as he wanted the volume
republished, he good-naturedly saved the proverbial valor of the British
soldier by changing the first line to
"The foeman trembles in his camp,"
and the tempest in a teapot was over, as far as England was concerned.
Not as far as the United States was concerned, however; for when the
circumstance became known to Mr. Leggett, he excoriated Mr. Irving for
his subserviency to a bloated aristocracy, and so forth. Mr. John Wilson
reviewed the book in _Blackwood's Magazine_ in a half-hearted way,
patronizing the writer with his praise.
The poems that Mr. Bryant wrote during the first seven years of his
residence in New York (some forty in number, not including translations)
exhibited the qualities which distinguished his genius from the
beginning, and were marked by characteristics which were rather acquired
than inherited. In other words, they were somewhat different from those
which were written at Great Barrington. The Hellenic element was still
visible in "The Greek Partisan" and "The Greek Boy," and the aboriginal
element in "The Disinterred Warrior." The large imagination of "The Hymn
to the North Star" was radiant in "The Firmament," and in "The Past."
Ardent love of nature found expressive utterance in "Lines on Revisiting
the Country," "The Gladness of Nature," "A Summer Ramble," "A Scene on
the Banks of the Hudson," and "The Evening Wind." The little book of
immortal dirges had a fresh leaf added to it in "The Death of the
Flowers," which was at once a pastoral of autumn and a monody over a
beloved sister. A new element appeared in "The Summer Wind," and was
always present afterward in Mr. Bryant's meditative poetry--the
association of humanity with nature--a calm but sympathetic recognition
of the ways of man and his presence on the earth. The power of
suggestion and of rapid generalization, which was the key-note of "The
Ages," lived anew in every line of "The Prairies," in which a series of
poems present themselves to the imagination as a series of pictures in a
gallery--pictures in which breadth and vigor of treatment and exquisite
delicacy of detail are everywhere harmoniously blended, and the unity of
pure Art is attained. It was worth going to the ends of the world to be
able to write "The Prairies."
Confiding in the discretion of his associate Mr. Leggett, and anxious to
escape from his daily editorial labors, Mr. Bryant sailed for Europe
with his family in the summer of 1834. It was his intention to perfect
his literary studies while abroad, and to devote himself to the
education of his children; but his intention was frustrated, after a
short course of travel in France, Germany, and Italy, by the illness of
Mr. Leggett, whose mistaken zeal in the advocacy of unpopular measures
had seriously injured the _Evening Post_. He returned in haste early in
1836, and devoted his time and energies to restoring the prosperity of
his paper. Nine years passed before he ventured to return to Europe,
though he managed to visit certain portions of his own country. His
readers tracked his journeys through the letters which he wrote to the
_Evening Post_, and which were noticeable for justness of observation
and clearness of expression. A selection from Mr. Bryant's foreign and
home letters was published in 1852, under the title of "Letters of a
Traveler."
The life of a man of letters is seldom eventful. There are, of course,
exceptions to the rule; for literature, like other polite professions,
is never without its disorderly followers. It is instructive to trace
their careers, which are usually short ones; but the contemplation of
the calm, well-regulated, self-respecting lives of the elder and wiser
masters is much more satisfactory. We pity the Maginns, and Mangans, and
Poes, whom we have always with us; but we admire and reverence such
writers as Wordsworth, and Thackeray, and Bryant, who dignify their high
calling. The last thirty years of the life of Mr. Bryant were devoid of
incidents, though one of them (1866) was not without the supreme
sorrow--death. He devoted himself to journalism as conscientiously as if
he still had his spurs to win, discussing all public questions with
independence and fearlessness; and from time to time, as the spirit
moved him, he added to our treasures of song, contributing to the
popular magazines of the period, and occasionally issuing these
contributions in separate volumes. He published "The Fountain and Other
Poems" in 1842; "The White-Footed Deer and Other Poems" in 1844; a
collected edition of his poems, with illustrations by Leutze, in 1846;
an edition in two volumes in 1855; "Thirty Poems" in 1866; and in 1876 a
complete illustrated edition of his poetical writings. To the honors
which these volumes brought him he added fresh laurels in 1870 and 1871
by the publication of his translation of the "Iliad" and the
"Odyssey"--a translation which was highly praised both at home and
abroad, and which, if not the best that the English language is capable
of, is, in many respects, the best which any English-writing poet has
yet produced.
There comes a day in the intellectual lives of most poets when their
powers cease to be progressive and productive, or are productive only in
the forms to which they have accustomed themselves, and which have
become mannerisms. It was not so with Mr. Bryant. He enjoyed the
dangerous distinction of proving himself a great poet at an early age;
he preserved this distinction to the last, for the sixty-four years
which elapsed between the writing of "Thanatopsis" and the writing of
"The Flood of Years" witnessed no decay of his poetic capacities, but
rather the growth and development of trains of thought and forms of
verse of which there was no evidence in his early writings. His
sympathies were enlarged as the years went on, and the crystal clearness
of his mind was colored with human emotions.
To Bryant, beyond all other modern poets, the earth was a theatre upon
which the great drama of life was everlastingly played. The remembrance
of this fact is his inspiration in "The Fountain," "An Evening Revery,"
"The Antiquity of Freedom," "The Crowded Street," "The Planting of the
Apple-Tree," "The Night Journey of a River," "The Sower," and "The Flood
of Years." The most poetical of Mr. Bryant's poems are, perhaps, "The
Land of Dreams," "The Burial of Love," "The May Sun sheds an Amber
Light," and "The Voice of Autumn;" and they were written in a succession
of happy hours, and in the order named. Next to these pieces, as
examples of pure poetry, should be placed "Sella" and "The Little People
of the Snow," which are exquisite fairy fantasies. The qualities by
which Mr. Bryant's poetry are chiefly distinguished are serenity and
gravity of thought; an intense though repressed recognition of the
mortality of mankind; an ardent love for human freedom; and unrivaled
skill in painting the scenery of his native land. He had no superior in
this walk of poetic art--it might almost be said no equal, for his
descriptions of nature are never inaccurate or redundant. "The
Excursion" is a tiresome poem, which contains several exquisite
episodes. Mr. Bryant knew how to write exquisite episodes, and to omit
the platitudes through which we reach them in other poets.
It is not given to many poets to possess as many residences as Mr.
Bryant, for he had three--a town-house in New York, a country-house,
called "Cedarmere," at Roslyn, Long Island, and the old homestead of the
Bryant family at Cummington. He passed the winter months in New York,
and the summer and early autumn months at his country-houses. No
distinguished man in America was better known by sight than he.
"O good gray head that all men knew"
rose unbidden to one's lips as he passed his fellow-pedestrians in the
streets of the great city, active, alert, with a springing step and a
buoyant gait. He was seen in all weathers, walking down to his office in
the morning, and back to his house in the afternoon--an observant
antiquity, with a majestic white beard, a pair of sharp eyes, and a face
which, noticed closely, recalled the line of the poet:
"A million wrinkles carved his skin."
Mr. Bryant had a peculiar talent, in which the French excel--the talent
of delivering discourses upon the lives and writings of eminent men; and
he was always in request after the death of his contemporaries.
Beginning with a eulogy on his friend Cole, the painter, who died in
1848, he paid his well-considered tributes to the memory of Cooper and
Irving, and assisted at the dedication in the Central Park of the Morse,
Shakespeare, Scott, and Halleck monuments. His addresses on those
occasions, and others that might be named, were models of justice of
appreciation and felicity of expression. His last public appearance was
at the Central Park, on the afternoon of May 29, 1878, at the unveiling
of a statue to Mazzini. It was an unusually hot day, and after
delivering his address, which was remarkable for its eloquence, he
accompanied General James Grant Wilson, an acquaintance of some years'
standing, to his residence in East Seventy-fourth street. General Wilson
reached his door with Mr. Bryant leaning on his arm; he took a step in
advance to open the inner door, and while his back was turned the poet
fell, striking his head on the stone platform of the front steps. It was
his death-blow; for, though he recovered his consciousness sufficiently
to converse a little, and was able to ride to his own house with General
Wilson, his fate was sealed. He lingered until the morning of the 12th
of June, when his capacious spirit passed out into the Unknown. Two days
later all that was mortal of him was buried beside the grave of his wife
at Roslyn.
Such was the life and such the life-work of William Cullen Bryant.