Ebook Thanatopsis and Other Poems

Bryant began to make verses in his eighth year, one of his earliest efforts being a paraphrase of the first chapter of the Book of Job, and another, a poetical address before his school. In his thirteenth year he surprised his family and the public with a political satire of over five hundred lines, which was published at Boston under the title, The Embargo, or Sketches of the Times; a Satire, by a Youth of Thirteen. It appeared in a second edition the following year, together with several other poems of a political character. More than forty pieces of verse were written before he was sixteen years old — odes, elegies, satires, songs, and translations: but they are little more than mocking-bird rhymes, in manner echoing Pope, whose in?uence was still dominant, and in matter rehearsing the political sentiments of the times; more over, they contain not the slightest hint-of the characteristics of his later poetry.