WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT
So shalt thou frame a lay
That haply may endure from age to age,
And they who read shall say:
"What witchery hangs upon this poet's page!
What art is his the written spells to find
That sway from mood to mood the willing mind."
His youth was innocent; his riper age
Marked with some act of goodness every day;
And watched by eyes that loved him, calm and sage,
Faded his late declining years away.
Meekly he gave his being up, and went
To share the holy rest that waits a life well spent.
William Cullen Bryant is justly called "the father of our song." His greatest poem, Thanatopsis, which established his reputation, was written twenty-eight years before the appearance of Longfellow's first volume of poetry. Bryant was a poet of nature, interpreting her in simple and most musical verse. Though he was a patriot in the best sense of the word, a notable journalist for half a century, and a part of the national life of the American republic, it is as poet that he will be best remembered and best loved.
William Cullen Bryant was born November 3, 1794, at Cummington, Hampshire county, Massachusetts.
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