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.]
As the years passed, he became New York's representative citizen, noted for
high ideals in journalism and for incorruptible integrity, as well as for
the excellence of his poetry. He died in 1878, at the age of eighty four,
and was buried at Roslyn, Long Island, beside his wife.
POETRY.--_Thanatopsis_, probably written in 1811, was first published in
1817 in _The North American Review_, a Boston periodical. One of the
editors said to an associate, "You have been imposed upon. No one on this
side of the Atlantic is capable of writing such verses." The associate
insisted that Dr. Bryant, the author, had left them at the office, and that
the Doctor was at that moment sitting in the State Senate, representing his
county. The editor at once dashed away to the State House, took a long look
at the Doctor, and reported, "It is a good head, but I do not see
_Thanatopsis_ in it.
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