Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1890-12-18
IN A POETS YOUTH.
william Cullen Bryants Early Lyrical
Aspirations and Performances.

The poet Bryant was an exception
to the rule which ordains that preco-
cious children shall either die while
young or become ordinary men, says
the IOuth'S Companion. On his first
birthday "he could walk alone, and
when but few days more than l6
months old knew all the letters of the
-ITTiTTd6rT- III IT'S SIXtn Year ne WAS,
as he himself tells US, IAN excellent,
almost infallible speller, and ready in
geography In his sixteenth year he
entered college, having mastered in
less than year all the Greek and
Latin required for admission to the
sophomore class at Williams college.
The boy was rs precocious in rhyming
as in studying. Before he was 10 years
old his grandfather gave him 9 pence
tor a rymed version of the first chapter
of job and the country paper pub
lshcd rhymed description of the
school he attended, which he wrote aud
acclaimed.
John Bigelow, in his life of Bryant,
says that "though these early verses
gave no particular poetical promise
llltN Ntlt ltlllNl hiult IVl wv tHlt
acterstics 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 priv
ate deyotions often prayed with fervor
that he might receive the gift of poet
ic genius, and write verses that might
endure
"Thanatopsis, the poem which gave
him national fame. was written in
1911, before he had attained his eight
zenith year though it was not published
until 1917. The story ofits publication
rs told by Mr.. Bigelow, is a unique
literary anecdote.
One day DR.. 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 cheeks
Read them! They are Cullen's.h
In a few DAYS the doctor went to
Boston, without communicating his in
tenton to his son, to show these verses
to his friend William Phillips, who was
one of the editors oft North american
RcUielC, then two years old. He left the
verses ut the Office of the RcUicV with
out their authors name or any intima-
ton Of their parentage.
Mr.. Philips read them and went to
Cambridge To submit them to Richard
IL. Dana and Edward T. Claiming, his
editorial colleagues. They listened
while MIR. Phillips read the manuscript
aud heard the little he had to tell about
its history.
"Ah, Phillips, said Dana. with a
skeptieal smile, 'you have been i'm
posed upon. No one on this side of
the Atlantis is capable of writing such
verse;
Inquiries, however, showed that Mr..
Phillips instead Of being imposed upon
had read to them the poems written by
au American boy who had not yet at
tanned his eighteenth year, One of the
poems was entitled 'ThanatopSiS,
and appeared in the September num-
Der of the Reuie10 for 1917. The poem
which accompanied it also appeared in
the same number under the title of
Fragment. 1t is now known as AN
Inscription for the Entrance to a
Wood
A significant fact associated with the