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,

shall come,

And make their bed with thee.

It was preceded by four stanzas of four lines each, which did not properly belong to the poem, but had been found with it. The beginning and ending of the poem as it now stands were first given in the volume of poems published by Bryant in 1821.

See Mr. Godwin's account of the origin of the poem, in his Life of Bryant, vol. i, pp. 97-101; and of its first publication, pp. 148-155.

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 say 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 — I 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.'