William Cullen Bryant "Thanatopsis" Poem animation

Heres a virtual movie of William Cullen Bryant (November 3, 1794 June 12, 1878) theAmerican romantic poet, journalist, and long-time editor of the New York Evening Post reading his best known poem "Thanatopsis" .The title is from the Greek thanatos ("death") and the suffix -opsis (literally, "sight"); it has often been translated as "Meditation upon Death". Due to the unusual quality of the verse and Bryant's age when the poem was first published in 1817 by the North American Review, Richard Henry Dana, Sr., then associate editor at the Review, initially doubted its authenticity, saying to another editor, "No one, on this side of the Atlantic, is capable of writing such verses." Although Bryant wrote the bulk of the poem at age 17 (in 1811), he added the introductory and concluding lines 10 years later in 1821. Written by Bryant at the age of 17, "Thanatopsis" remains a significant milestone in American literary history.[citation needed] It was republished in 1821 as the lead poem of Thanatopsis and Other Poems, which was considered by many to be the first major book of American poetry. Nevertheless, over five years, it earned Bryant only $14.92.[1] Poet and literary critic Thomas Holley Chivers said that the "only thing [Bryant] ever wrote that may be called Poetry is 'Thanatopsis', which he stole line for line from the Spanish."[2] Chivers often accused other writers of stealing poems. WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT was born at Cummington, Hampshire County, Massachusetts, November 3, 1794, and, after an unusually long and active literary life, he died in New York, June 12, 1878.

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Jim Clark

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Thanatopsis.......................

O him who in the love of Nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language; for his gayer hours She has a voice of gladness, and a smile And eloquence of beauty, and she glides Into his darker musings, with a mild And healing sympathy, that steals away Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts Of the last bitter hour come like a blight Over thy spirit, and sad images Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, Make thee to shudder and grow sick at heart;-- Go forth, under the open sky, and list To Nature's teachings, while from all around-- Earth and her waters, and the depths of air-- Comes a still voice--Yet a few days, and thee The all-beholding sun shall see no more In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground, Where thy pale form was laid with many tears, Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist Thy image. Earth, that nourish'd thee, shall claim Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again, And, lost each human trace, surrendering up Thine individual being, shalt thou go To mix for ever with the elements, To be a brother to the insensible rock, And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould