XXXIV. THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS.

William Cullen Bryant (b. 1794, d. 1878) was born in Cummington, Mass. He
entered Williams College at the age of sixteen, but was honorably
dismissed at the end of two years. At the age of twenty-one he was
admitted to the bar, and practiced his profession successfully for nine
years. In 1826 he removed to New York, and became connected with the
"Evening Post"--a connection which continued to the time of his death. His
residence for more than thirty of the last years of his life was at
Roslyn, Long Island. He visited Europe several times; and in 1849 he
continued his travels into Egypt and Syria, In all his poems, Mr. Bryant
exhibits a remarkable love for, and a careful study of, nature. His
language, both in prose and verse, is always chaste, correct, and elegant.
"Thanatopsis," perhaps the best known of all his poems, was written when
he was but nineteen. His excellent translations of the "Iliad" and the
"Odyssey" of Homer and some of his best poems, were written after he had
passed the age of seventy. He retained his powers and his activity till
the close of his life.

1. The melancholy days are come,
The saddest of the year,
Of wailing winds, and naked woods,
And meadows brown and sear.
Heaped in the hollows of the grove
The autumn leaves lie dead;
They rustle to the eddying gust,
And to the rabbit's tread.