" When the father was aware of the misunderstanding, he
corrected it, but there were for a long time doubts whether a boy could
have written a poem of this rank. In middle age the poet wrote the
following to answer a question in regard to the time of the composition of
_Thanatopsis_:--
"It was written when I was seventeen or eighteen years old--I have not
now at hand the memorandums which would enable me to be precise--and I
believe it was composed in my solitary rambles in the woods. As it was
first committed to paper, it began with the half line--'Yet a few days,
and thee'--and ended with the beginning of another line with the
words--'And make their bed with thee.' The rest of the poem--the
introduction and the close--was added some years afterward, in 1821."
_Thanatopsis_ remains to-day Bryant's most famous production. It is a
stately poem upon death, and seems to come directly from the lips of
Nature:--
"... from all around--
Earth and her waters and the depth of air--
Comes a still voice.--
Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more ..."
No other poem presents "all-including death" on a scale of such vastness.
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