"Free as when I rode that day, Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay." She wedded a man unlearned and poor, But care and sorrow, and childbirth pain, And oft, when the summer sun shone hot And she heard the little spring brook fall In the shade of the apple-tree again And, gazing down with timid grace, Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls The weary wheel to a spinnet turned, And for him who sat by the chimney lug, A manly form at her side she saw, Then she took up her burden of life again, 100 Alas for maiden, alas for Judge, God pity them both! and pity us all, 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 And, in the hereafter, angels may 105 110 106. The exigencies of rhyme have a heavy burden to bear in this line. WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT was born at Cummington, 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 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 published 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 grave stately 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 maintain life by a frequent change of name, Bryant accepted an appointment as assistant editor of the Evening Post. From 1826, then, until his death, Bryant was a journalist by profession. One effect of this change in his life was to eliminate from his poetry that political character which was displayed in his first published poem and had several times since shown itself. Thenceafter he threw into his journalistic occupation all those thoughts and experiences which made him by nature a patriot and political thinker; he reserved for poetry the calm reflection, love of nature, and purity of aspiration which made him a poet. His editorial writing was made strong and pure by his cultivated taste and lofty ideals, but he presented the rare combination of a poet who never sacrificed his love of high literature and his devotion to art, and of a publicist who retained a sound judgment and pursued the most practical ends. His life outwardly was uneventful. He made four journeys to Europe, in 1834, 1845, 1852, 1857, and he made frequent tours in his own country. His observations on his travels were published in Letters from a Traveller, Letters from the East, and Letters from Spain and other Countries. He never held public office, except that in 1860 he was a presidential elector, but he was connected intimately with important movements in society, literature, and politics, and was repeatedly called upon to deliver addresses commemorative of eminent citizens, as of Washington Irving, and James Fenimore Cooper, and at the unveiling of the bust of Mazzini in the Central Park. His Orations and Addresses have been gathered into a volume. The bulk of his poetry apart from his poetic translations is not considerable, and is made up almost wholly of short poems which are chiefly inspired by his love of nature. R. H. Dana in his preface to The Idle Man says: "I shall never forget with what feeling my friend Bryant some years ago1 described to me the effect produced upon him by his meeting for the first time with Wordsworth's Ballads. He lived, when quite young, where but few works of poetry were to be had; at a period, too, when Pope was still the great idol of the Temple of Art. He said that upon opening Wordsworth a thousand springs seemed to gush up at once in his heart, and the face of nature of a sudden to change into a strange freshness and life." This was the interpreting power of Wordsworth suddenly disclosing to Bryant, not the secrets of nature, but his own powers of perception and interpretation. Bryant is in no sense an imitator of Wordsworth, but a comparison of the two poets would be of great interest as showing how individually each pursued the same general poetic end. Wordsworth's Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower and Bryant's O Fairest of the Rural Maids offer an admirable opportunity for disclosing the separate treatment of similar subjects. In Bryant's lines, musical and full of a gentle revery, the poet seems to go deeper and deeper into the forest, almost forgetful of the "fairest of the rural maids;" in Wordsworth's lines, with what simple yet profound feeling 1 This was written in 1833. |