William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) was born in Cummington; his father was a physician and his mother a Mayflower descendant. In addition to his importance as a poet, Bryant also played an important role in the development of American journalism, as editor, publisher, and part-owner of the newspaper founded by Alexander Hamilton that now is the New York Post.
Bryant wrote his most anthologized poem, Thanatopsis, in his teens; in 1808, he published The Embargo, a polemic critical of President Jefferson’s foreign policy. With Monument Mountain, Bryant spreads global renown over one of the Berkshires best loved places and familiar profiles. Less well-known is one that both honors the dispossessed Mohican nation and predicts the harm to the environment of that dispossession.
Poetry by William Cullen Bryant
Here are the concluding stanzas of the thirteen that comprise An Indian at the Burying Place of His Fathers:
Before these fields were shorn and tilled,
Full to the brim our rivers flowed;
The melody of waters filled
The fresh and boundless wood;
And torrents dashed and rivulets played,
And fountains spouted in the shade.
Those graceful sounds are heard no more,
The springs are silent in the sun,
The rivers, by the blackened shore,
With lessening current run;
The realm our tribes are crushed to get
May be a barren desert yet.
Complete poem, and many more available here.
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