Go forth, under the open sky, and list

1 This, the first great poem written in America, was published in the North American Review for September, 1817, vol. v, pp. 338-340. Bryant's father had found it, together with the Fragment,' later known as 'Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood,' among other papers in a desk; and had immediately taken it to Boston and shown it to his friend Willard Phillips, one of the editors of the North American Review. When Phillips read the poem to his fellow editors, one of them, Richard H. Dana, exclaimed, Ah, Phillips, you have been imposed upon; no one on this side of the Atlantic is capable of writing such verses;' and though soon persuaded that the verses really were by an American, the editors still believed that Thanatopsis ' must have been written by the young poet's father. Phillips says in a letter to Bryant, December, 1817: "Your "Fragment" was exceedingly liked here. All the best judges say that it and your father's "Thanatopsis" are the very best poetry that has been published in this country.'

As originally printed in the North American Review, the poem began with what is now line 17, -Yet a few days.

and ended with lines 65 and 66,

With patriarchs of the infant world with kings,

The powerful of the earth the wise, the good,

Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past, All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun,

the

vales Stretching in pensive quietness between; The venerable woods- rivers that move In majesty, and the complaining brooks That make the meadows green; and, poured round all,

Qld Ocean's gray and melancholy wasće, -

key noth

1817.1

THE YELLOW VIOLET WHEN beechen buds begin to swell, And woods the blue-bird's warble know, The yellow violet's modest bell

Peeps from the last year's leaves below.

Ere russet fields their green resume,

Sweet flower, I love, in forest bare,
To meet thee, when thy faint perfume
Alone is in the virgin air.

Of all her train, the hands of Spring
First plant thee in the watery mould, 10
And I have seen thee blossoming

Beside the snow-bank's edges cold.

Thy parent sun, who bade thee view

Pale skies, and chilling moisture sip, Has bathed thee in his own bright hue, And streaked with jet thy glowing lip.

Yet slight thy form, and low thy seat,
And earthward bent thy gentle eye,
Unapt the passing view to meet,
When loftier flowers are flaunting nigh.

Oft, in the sunless April day,

Thy early smile has stayed my walk; But midst the gorgeous blooms of May, I passed thee on thy humble stalk.

20

1 Figures at the left, in italics, give the date of writing; those at the right, in roman, the date of publication. For Bryant's poems the dates are taken from Godwin's standard edition of the Poetical Works.

Mr. Godwin states in his note to Thanatopsis' that the poem was written in the summer of 1811, which would make Bryant only sixteen years old at the time not seventeen, as Mr. Godwin himself elsewhere says Bryant's own account of the matter is given in a lette of 1855, which Mr. Godwin quotes: I cannot give you any information of the occasion which suggested to my mind the idea of my poem "Thanatopsis." It was written when I was seventeen or eighteen years old -- 1 have not now at hand the memorandums [sic] which would enable me to be precise and I believe it was composed in my solitary rambles in the woods.'

STRANGER, if thou hast learned a truth which needs

No school of long experience, that the world Is full of guilt and misery, and hast seen Enough of all its sorrows, crimes, and cares, To tire thee of it, enter this wild wood And view the haunts of Nature. The calm shade

Shall bring a kindred calm, and the sweet breeze

That makes the green leaves dance, shall waft a balm

To thy sick heart. Thou wilt find nothing here

Of all that pained thee in the haunts of

With all their earth upon them, twisting high,

Breathe fixed tranquillity. The rivulet Sends forth glad sounds, and tripping o'er its bed

Of pebbly sands, or leaping down the rocks, Seems, with continuous laughter, to rejoice In its own being. Softly tread the marge," Lest from her midway perch thou scare the

TO A WATERFOWL 2

WHITHER, midst falling dew,

1817.

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,

Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou

Might mark thy distant flight to do thee

wrong,

As, darkly seen against the crimson sky, Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink

Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,

1 The poem, as first published in the North American Review for September, 1817, under the title 'A Fragment,' ended at this point. The last lines were added in the first edition of the Poems, in 1821.

2 On the origin of this poem, see Godwin's Life of Bryant, vol. i, pp. 143, 144. Hartley Coleridge once called it the best short poem in the English language; and Matthew Arnold was inclined to agree with his judgment. See an account of the incident in Bigelow's Life of Bryant, note to pp. 42, 43.

Yet, fair as thou art, thou shunnest to glide, Beautiful stream! by the village side; But windest away from haunts of men, To quiet valley and shaded glen;

And forest, and meadow, and slope of hill,
Around thee, are lonely, lovely, and still; 30
Lonely-save when, by thy rippling tides,
From thicket to thicket the angler glides,
Or the simpler comes, with basket and
book,

For herbs of power on thy banks to look;
Or haply, some idle dreamer, like me,
To wander, and muse, and gaze on thee,
Still save the chirp of birds that feed
On the river cherry and seedy reed,
And thy own wild music gushing out
With mellow murmur of fairy shout,
From dawn to the blush of another day,
Like traveller singing along his way.

That fairy music I never hear,

40

Nor gaze on those waters so green and clear,

And mark them winding away from sight, Darkened with shade or flashing with light, While o'er them the vine to its thicket

clings,

And the zephyr stoops to freshen his wings,
But I wish that fate had left me free
To wander these quiet haunts with thee, 50
Till the eating cares of earth should de-
part,

And the peace of the scene pass into my heart;