But he thought of his sisters proud and cold,
And his mother vain of her rank and gold.

So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on, 60 And Maud was left in the field alone.

But the lawyers smiled that afternoon,
When he hummed in court an old love-tune;

And the young girl mused beside the well
Till the rain on the unraked clover fell.

65 He wedded a wife of richest dower, Who lived for fashion, as he for power.

Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow,
He watched a picture come and go;

And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes 70 Looked out in their innocent surprise.

Oft, when the wine in his glass was red,
He longed for the wayside well instead ;

And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms
To dream of meadows and clover blooms.

75 And the proud man sighed, with a secret pain, 66 Ah, that I were free again!

"Free as when I rode that day,

Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay."

She wedded a man unlearned and poor,

&c And many children played round her door.

But care and sorrow,

and childbirth pain,

Left their traces on heart and brain.

And oft, when the summer sun shone hot
On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot,

85 And she heard the little spring brook fall Over the roadside, through the wall,

In the shade of the apple-tree again
She saw a rider draw his rein.

And, gazing down with timid grace, 90 She felt his pleased eyes read her face.

Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls
Stretched away into stately halls;

The weary wheel to a spinnet turned,
The tallow candle an astral burned,

95 And for him who sat by the chimney lug, Dozing and grumbling o'er pipe and mug,

A manly form at her side she saw,
And joy was duty and love was law.

Then she took up her burden of life again, 100 Saying only, "It might have been."

Alas for maiden, alas for Judge,
For rich repiner and household drudge !

God pity them both! and pity us all,
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall.

105 For of all sad words of tongue or pen,

The saddest are these: "It might have been!"

Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies
Deeply buried from human eyes;

And, in the hereafter, angels may

110 Roll the stone from its grave away!

106. The exigencies of rhyme have a heavy burden to bear in his line.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

W

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

́ILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT was born at Cum mington, Massachusetts, November 3, 1794; he died in New York, June 12, 1878. His first poem, The Embargo, was published in Boston in 1809, and was written when he was but thirteen years old; his last poem, Our Fellow Worshippers, was published in 1878. His long life thus was also a long career as a writer, and his first published poem prefigured the twofold character of his literary life, for while it was in poetic form it was more distinctly a political article. He showed very early a taste for poetry, and was encouraged to read and write verse by his father, Dr. Peter Bryant, a country physician of strong character and cultivated tastes. He was sent to Williams College in the fall of 1810, where he remained two terms, when he decided to leave and enter Yale College; but pecuniary troubles interfered with his plans and he never completed his college course. He pursued his literary studies at home, then began the study of law and was admitted to the bar in 1815. Meantime he had been continuing to

write, and during this period wrote with many corrections and changes the poem by which he is still perhaps best known, Thanatopsis. It was pub lished in the North American Review for September, 1817, and the same periodical published a few months afterward his lines To a Waterfowl, one of the most characteristic and lovely of Bryant's poems. Literature divided his attention with law, but evidently had his heart. In 1821 he was invited to read a poem before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard College, and he read The Ages, a stately grave poem which shows his own poetic power, his familiarity with the great masters of literature, and his lofty, philosophic nature. Shortly after this he issued a small volume of poems, and his name began to be known as that of the first American who had written poetry that could take its place in universal literature. His own decided preference for literature and the encouragement of friends led to his abandonment of the law in 1825, and his removal to New York, where he undertook the associate-editorship of The New York Review and Athenæum Magazine. Poetic genius is not caused or controlled by circumstance, but a purely literary life in a country not yet educated in literature was impossible to a man of no other means of support, and in a few months, after the Review had vainly tried to main. tain life by a frequent change of name, Bryant accepted an appointment as assistant editor of The Evening Post. From 1826, then, until his death,