To a Waterfowl

The Oxford Companion to American Literature | 1995 | 545 words | Copyright

To a Waterfowl, lyric poem by Bryant, written in 1815, published in 1818, and collected in Poems (1821). Called by Matthew Arnold “the most perfect brief poem in the language,” it is arranged in alternately rhymed quatrains, and expresses the poet's grateful vision, at the close of a day of self‐doubt and despair, of a solitary bird on the horizon, and his sense of the protective guidance of everything in nature by a divine Power, who “In the long way that I must tread alone, Will lead my steps aright.”

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James D. Hart and and Phillip W. Leininger. "To a Waterfowl." The Oxford Companion to American Literature. 1995. Encyclopedia.com. 27 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

James D. Hart and and Phillip W. Leininger. "To a Waterfowl." The Oxford Companion to American Literature. 1995. Encyclopedia.com. (May 27, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O123-ToaWaterfowl.html

James D. Hart and and Phillip W. Leininger. "To a Waterfowl." The Oxford Companion to American Literature. 1995. Retrieved May 27, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O123-ToaWaterfowl.html

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