with the publication of "Thanatopsis"
in the "North American Review," in 1816; for we need take no account of
those earlier blossoms, plucked untimely from the tree, as they had been
prematurely expanded by the heat of party politics. The strain of that
song was of a higher mood. In those days, when American literature spoke
with faint and feeble voice, like the chirp of half-awakened birds in
the morning twilight, we need not say what cordial welcome was extended
to a poem which embodied in blank verse worthy of anybody since Milton
thoughts of the highest reach and noblest power, or what wonder was
mingled with the praise when it was announced that this grand and
majestic moral teaching and this rich and sustained music were the work
of a boy of eighteen. Not that Bryant was no more than eighteen when
"Thanatopsis" was printed, for he must pay one of the tributes of
eminence in having all the world know that he was born in 1794; but he
was no more than eighteen when it was written, and surely never was
there riper fruit plucked from so young a tree. And now we have before
us, with the imprint of 1864, his latest volume, entitled "Thirty
Poems." Between this date and that of the publication of "Thanatopsis"
there sweeps an arch of forty-eight years. With Bryant these have been
years of manly toil, of resolute sacrifice, of faithful discharge of all
the duties of life. The cultivation of the poetical faculty is not
always favorable to the growth of the character, but Bryant is no less
estimable as a man than admirable as a poet. It has been his lot to earn
his bread by the exercise of the prose part of his mind,--by those
qualities which he has in common with other men,--and his poetry has
been written in the intervals and breathing-spaces of a life of regular
industry. This necessity for ungenial toil may have added something to
the shyness and gravity of the poet's manners; but it has doubtless
given earnestness, concentration, depth, and a strong flavor of life to
his verse. Had he been a man of leisure, he might have written more, but
he could hardly have written better. And nothing tends more to prolong
to old age the freshness of feeling and the sensibility to impressions
which are characteristic of the poetical temperament than the dedication
of a portion of every day to some kind of task-work. The sweetest
flowers are those which grow upon the rocks of renunciation. Byron at
thirty-seven was a burnt-out volcano: