Poetry and satire came to Bryant very early. At thirteen, he wrote “The Embargo,” a satirical poem calling for the resignation of President Thomas Jefferson. With a very specific aim to his education, he enrolled as a sophomore at Williams College as he desired to transfer to Yale. During this young age, he wrote the poem Thanatopsis, whose theme was literally, a consideration of death. This was inspired by his prolific reading of the works of poets such as William Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads and Robert Blair's The Grave.
Image - Thanatopsis, and other poems - 1884, Clark & Maynard
However, his first published book of poems was Poems in 1821. Along with this, he is also the author of several other books - The White-Footed Deer and Other Poems (1844), and The Fountain and Other Poems (1842).
For most of his life he was editor in chief of the New York Evening Post. His writings spoke for workers, abolition of slavery and for the rights of immigrants.
The Death of Slavery by William Cullen Bryant
The poem was written just after the American Civil War ended. Hence there is a heavy portrayal of personified slavery, effects of war and the horrors of bondage.
This poem is an satirical take on slavery and bondage. Bryant imagines that an evil man through his pride and power held innocent humans as slaves. But the abolitionists - shown here as saviours - by divine intervention, freed them. The themes here are of good vs evil, power vs saving and God vs power of devil. Bryant also tries to give a message - of the sheer evil of slavery.
O Thou great Wrong, that, through the slow-paced years,
Didst hold thy millions fettered, and didst wield
The scourge that drove the laborer to the field,
And turn a stony gaze on human tears,
Thy cruel reign is o’er;
Thy bondmen crouch no more
In terror at the menace of thine eye;
For He who marks the bounds of guilty power,
Long-suffering, hath heard the captive’s cry,
And touched his shackles at the appointed hour,
And lo! they fall, and he whose limbs they galled
Stands in his native manhood, disenthralled.
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