The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1897-11-27
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT
Essay on his Life by Maggie Wilde,
Pupil of L'Anse High School.

\ y
miles around this quiet place of his
birth the country is mountainous
and the valleys very beautiful The
poet was always greatly attached to
this delightful region. When age
had crowned him with honors and
fortune he returned to his native
city, and purchasing the old home
stead fitted it up as a summer resi-
dence where he gathered about him
the remaining members of the family.
| Not alone was he interested in his
own home. Cummington has noble
memorial of her gifted son in an ex-
cellent library of some six thousand
volumes, which he presented to her,
and building for its accommodation,
situated on beautiful site, chosen
forfhat purpose.
Bryant was peculiarly fortunate
in his father, who, if he was disap-
pointed on finding that his son was
born to be a follower of Apollo and
not of Aesculapus. kept his disap-
pointment to himself, and encourag-
ed the lad in his poetical attempts.
In the "Hymn to Death, composed
by Bryant at the death of his father,
he thus alludes to him: For he is
in his grave who taught my youth
the art of verse, and IN the bud of
life offered me to the Muses.
In his sixteenth year Bryant en-
tered Williams college, where he re-
mained until 1872. Here he distin-
guished himself especially for apt
ness and industry in classical learn
ing and polite literature.
So far he had written nothing but
clever amateur verse; now, in his
eighteenth year, he wrote an i'm
perishable poem. Various statements
have been made in regard to the cir
cumstances under which it was com
posed. 1T was in Cummington, while
wandering in the primeval forests,
over the floor of which were scatter
ed the gigantic trunks of fallen trees,
mouldering for long years and sug-
geSting an indefinite and remote an
tiquity, and where silent rivulets
crept along through the carpet of
dead leaves, the spoil of thousands
of summers, that the poem entitled
"Thanatopsis' was written. When
| the young poet Eft his hons to be
gin his law studies, he left the manu-
script of this Incompatible poem
among some papers in the house Of
his father, who found it after his de
parture Here are some lines our
son Cullen has been writing" he
said to lady to whom he showed
them. She read them, and raising
her'ey to the face of Dr.. Bryant,
burst into tears, a tribute to the
genius of his son, in which he was
not ashamed to join.
Blackstone bade his Muse long
adieu before he turned to wranglinG
courts and stubborn law. This our
young lawyer-poet had intended TO
do, but he could hardly overcome the
strong tendencies which habit and
nature had establ:ohed in him.
We find little difficulty in deter
mining the order in which his poems
follow one another successively. In
some instances we are able to deter
mine the places in which they were
written. For example, "Thana-
topsis" was succeeded by "The Vel
low Violet" and the Inscription for
the Entrance to a Wood "To a
Waterfowl, the poem which Hartley
Coleridge has declared to be the best
, short poem in the English language,
was written at Bridgewatcr in his
twentieth year, while he was yet
studying law. He was on his way
! to Plainfeld, hamlet about seven
miles from his own home and visible
from there. AS he was ploddng
along, feeling very forlorn and desc
late, a solitary bird flew across the
brilliant sunshny sky. He was
deeply impressed both by the beauty
of the scene and by the lesson it
brought to him in an hour OF uncer-
tainty and Encouragement:
| lie who, from zone to zone,
| Guides through the boundieSs SKY my cer'
In the long way that must tread alone,
| viii lead my steps Alright
The poet had, indeed, long way
to tread, but he was not destined to
tread it alone. In Great Barring
ton he met the Genevieve OF his
"chilly little song" Miss Frances
Fairchild, whom he married in 1871 F,
and who was the light of his house
hold for more than half century.
1t was to her that he addressed the
ideal poems, 90, Fairest OF the
Rural Maids" " "The Future Life
and "The Life That Is, and hei
memory and her loss are tenderly
embalmed in one Of the most touching
of his later poems, October, 1866.
The young lawyer was not com
plimentary to his clients, whom, IL
his "Green River, !" -he styles th'
"dregs of men, while his pen, which
does its best to serve him.. he calls
"a barbarous pen" But in hi'
sadder hours visit to the bcautlfu
river he has commemorated would
restore his spirits; for he tells u
that as he gazes upon its lonely an'