River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1890-07-31
POET BRYANrs YOUTH.
The Patience with which He Waited for
the Publication of Thanatopsis.

The Patience with Which He Waited for
the Publication of Thanatopsis.
The poet Bryant was an exception TO
the rule which ordains that precocious
children shall either die while young or
become ordinary men. On his first birth
day The could walk alone, and when but
few days more than sixteen months
old knew all the letters of the alphabet"
In his sixth year he was, as he himself
tells US, IAN excellent, almost an infalli-
BILE speller, and ready in geography"
In his sixteenth year he entered college,
having mastered in less than year all
the Greek and Latin req Jired for admis-
sion to the Sophomore class at Williams
College.
The boy was as precocious in rhyming
as in studying. Before he was ten
years old his grandfather gave him
ninepence for rhymed version of the
first chapter of Job, and the country
paper published a rhymed description
of the school he attended which he wrote
and acclaimed.
Mr.. John Bigelow, in his life of Bry-
ant says that Though these early
verses gave no particular poetical prom
Use, they were remarkable fer two char
acteristics by which all his poetry was
destined to be distinguished: the cor
rectness both of the measure and the
rhyme"
So intense was the boys ambition TO
be poet that he not only read what
poetry fell in his way, but in his private
devotions often prayed with fervor that
he might receive the gift of poetic
genius, and write verses that might en-
dure."
''Thanatoptis," the poem which gave
him a National fame, was written in
1911, before he had attained his eight
zenith year, though it was not published
till 1917. The story of its publication,
as told by Mr. Bigelow, is a unique lit
erary anecdote.
One day DIR. Bryant, the youths
father, while looking through the
drawers in his sons desk, came upon
some manuscript verses. He read them,
and was so impressed that he hurried to
the house of friend, and, thrusting
the verses into her hand, exclaimed,
while tears ran down his checks: Read
them! They are Cullen's."
In a few days the doctor went to Bos-
ton, without communicating his inten-
tion to his son, to show these verses
to his friend William Phillips, who was
one of the editors of the North Amer
lean Review, then two years old. He
left the verses at the office of the Re-
view without their authors name, or
| any information of their parentage.
Mr.. Phillips read them and went TO
Cambridge, to submit them to Richard
ii. Dana and Edward 4. Claiming, his
editorial colleagues. They listened
while Mr.. Phillips read the manuscript
and heard the little he had to tell about
its history.
"Ah. Phillips" said Dana, with a
sceptical smile, You have beer i'm
posed upon! No one on this side of the At
lantic is capable of writing such verse"
Inquiries, however, showed that Mr.
Phillips, instead of being imposed up
on, had read to them the poems written
by an American boy who had not yet
attained his eighteenth year. One of
the poems was entitled '"rhanatopsis,"
and appeared in the September number
of the Review for 1917. The poem
which accompanied it also appeared in
the same number under the title of
Fragment" it is now known as AN In
scription for the Entrance to a Wood"
A significant fact associated with the
two poems is that "Thanatopsis" was
six years old when it was printed, an
the Fragment" two years Such pa
tient waiting is rare with young writ
ers.-Youth's Champion.