Aside from these poems and others of their kind, which make the connection between Bryant the editor and Bryant the poet, he continued to write on his old themes--nature and the individual life. There was no complete reversal of attitude; some of the later poems were reminders of some of the earlier ones. Yet a real change came after he had mixed with the world. At first he was inclined to lament the loss of the old life, seeming to forget how irksome it had been when he was in the midst of it. In such personal verses as "I cannot forget with what fervid devotion" and "I broke the spell that held me long" he was indulging in the luxury of mild self-pity. "In my younger days I had lots of time, but no money and few friends. Now I have friends and an income, but alas, I have no time." This was but a temporary mood, however. It is quite clear from his later poems that he enjoyed life more in town than in country. This is proven by the fact that nature did not continue to suggest mournful thoughts. "The Planting of the Apple Tree" is serenely recorded in "quaint old rhymes." Instead of saying, as in his earlier manner: "We plant this apple tree, but we plant it only for a few short years. Then it will die, like all mankind. Perhaps I may be buried beneath its shade," he said: "Come, let us plant it. It will blossom and bear fruit which will be eaten in cottage and palace, here and abroad. And when it is old, perhaps its aged branches will throw thin shadows on a better world than this is now. Who knows?" The stanzas on "Robert of Lincoln" are not merely free from sadness; they are positively jolly. In the last years of his long career--he lived to be eighty-four--he seems at first glance to have gone back to his youthful sadness; but this is not really the case, for thoughts which are premature or affected in youth are natural to old age. At eighty-two, in "A Lifetime" and "The Flood of Years" he actually looked back over many bereavements and forward but a very short way to the life after death. The two poems taken together are an old man's farewell to the world. Like the poem with which he won his first fame, they present another glimpse of death, but this time it is a fair prospect of A present in whose reign no grief shall gnaw The Heart, and never shall a tender tie Be broken.