Year produced what may fairly be called the first real poem written in America, "Thanatopsis," a wonderful achievement for a youth of that age. Six months later came the beautiful lines, "To a Waterfowl," and Bryant's career as a poet was fairly begun. In 1821 came the thin volume in which these and other poems were collected, and its success finally decided its author to relinquish a career at the bar and to turn to literature. In the years that followed, Bryant produced a few other noteworthy poems, yet it is significant of the thinness of his inspiration that, though he began writing in early youth and lived to the age of eighty-four, his total prod