"To a Waterfowl" is a lyric poem of eight four-line stanzas presenting the musings of a person observing a soaring waterfowl. Bryant completed the poem in 1818 and published it in a collection, Poems, in 1821. According to biographer Parke Godwin, Bryant was traveling from Cummington, Massachusetts, to Plainfield when he saw a high-flying bird that later inspired him to write the poem, one of his most popular. Godwin (1816-1904) worked with Bryant at the New York Evening Post and later married his daughter. He published a biography of Bryant in 1883. Godwin is not to be confused with novelist and short-story writer Parke Godwin, born in 1929.

Just as God guides the waterfowl to its summer home, so too He guides the speaker of the poem through life to his ultimate destination, heaven. In the end, one will be able to say about the speaker what the speaker says about the waterfowl: "the abyss of heaven / Hath swallowed up thy form" (lines 25-26). The poem is, in essence, a profession of faith in God.

Meter

In each stanza, the poet uses iambic trimiter in lines 1 and 4 but iambic pentameter in lines 2 and 3. The second stanza illustrates this format:
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Bryant neatly divides the poem into eight stanzas, each with the same metrical structure and each with the same rhyme pattern: the last syllable of the first line always rhymes with the last syllable of the third, and the last syllable of the second line always rhymes with the last syllable of the fourth. (Lines 14 and 16 have different vowel sounds at the end; consequently, the syllables containing them become a pararhyme.) The use of iambs (metrical feet each consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable) throughout the poem could be a way to suggest the flapping of wings.

Examples of Figures of Speech

alliteration: While, Whither (lines 1-2); depths, dost (line 3); their, thou, thy (lines 3-4); distant, do, darkly (lines 6-7)
metaphor: last steps of day (comparison of the day to a creature that walks).
anaphora: repetition of soon (lines 21, 22, 24). Anaphora is the repetition of a word, phrase, or clause at the beginning of word groups occurring one after the other. Examples: (1) Give me wine, give me women and give me song. (2) For everything there is a season . . . a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted.—Bible, Ecclesiastes.
personification: The speaker addresses the waterfowl as if it were a person, saying it has taught a lesson; he also refers to other waterfowls as fellows (line 23).
metaphor: on my heart / deeply hath sunk the lesson (comparison of the heart to the intellect)

Use of Anastrophe

Like many other poets, Bryant occasionally uses anastrophe—inversion of the normal word order—as in While glow the heavens (line 2) and river wide (line 10).

Study Questions and Essay Topics

1...What is the mood of the poem?
2...What is a waterfowl?
3...What meaning or meanings do you attribute to long way in line 31?
4...Write an essay about a lesson you learned from nature—for example, from a squirrel gathering nuts, a tree bending in the wind, autumn leaves turning color, thunder rumbling in the distance, a mist rolling through a valley?
5...If you were to paint a picture illustrating the poem, what would it look like? Would you include the speaker (poet) in the picture? How would you convey the idea of a divine presence guiding the waterfowl?
6...After conducting research, write an essay explaining the extent to which William Cullen Bryant drew inspiration for his writing from nature.
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