Bryant, at about the age of eighteen, soon after leaving Williams, wrote Thanatopsis,—with the exception of the opening and the closing parts. He had already written at the age of thirteen a satiric poem, The Embargo, which had secured wide circulation in New England. Keenly disappointed at not being able to continue his college education, he regretfully began the study of law in order to earn his living as soon as possible. He celebrated his admission to the bar by writing one of his greatest short poems, To a Waterfowl (1815). When he was a lawyer practicing in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, he met Miss Fanny Fairchild, to whom he addressed the poem,—
"O fairest of the rural maids!"
[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF RECORD OF BRYANT'S MARRIAGE]
Religious in all things, he prepared this betrothal prayer, which they repeated together before they were married in the following year—
"May Almighty God mercifully take care of our happiness here and hereafter. May we ever continue constant to each other, and mindful of our mutual promises of attachment and truth. In due time, if it be the will of Providence, may we become more nearly connected with each other, and together may we lead a long, happy, and innocent life, without any diminution of affection till we die."
In 1821, the year in which Cooper published The Spy and Shelley wrote his Adonais lamenting the death of Keats, Bryant issued the first volume of his verse, which contained eight poems, Thanatopsis, The Inscription for Entrance to a Wood, To a Waterfowl, The Ages, The Fragment from Simonides, The Yellow Violet, The Song, and Green River. This was an epoch-making volume for American poetry. Freneau's best lyrics were so few that they had attracted little attention, but Bryant's 1821 volume of verse furnished a new standard of excellence, below which poets who aspired to the first rank could not fall. During the five years after its publication, the sales of this volume netted him a profit of only $14.92, but a Boston editor soon offered him two hundred dollars a year for an average of one hundred lines of verse a month. Bryant accepted the offer, and wrote poetry in connection with the practice of law.
Unlike Irving and Charles Brockden Brown, Bryant attended to his legal work doggedly and conscientiously for nine years, but he never liked the law, and he longed to be a professional author. In 1825 he abandoned the law and went to New York City. Here he managed to secure a livelihood for awhile on the editorial force of short-lived periodicals. In 1827, however, he became assistant editor, and in 1829 editor-in-chief, of The New York Evening Post—a position which he held for nearly fifty years, until his death.
The rest of his life is more political and journalistic than literary. He made The Evening Post a power in the development of the nation, but his work as editor interfered with his poetry, although he occasionally wrote verse to the end of his life.
In middle life he began a series of trips abroad, and wrote many letters describing his travels. To occupy his attention after his wife died in 1866, he translated Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, at the nearly uniform rate of forty lines a day. This work still remains one of the standard poetic translations of Homer.
[Illustration: BRYANT'S HOME, ROSLYN, L.I.]