Bryant briefly attended Williams College but called his education there "meager and slight" and left after only seven months, returning to the family Homestead in May 1811. After private study, he was admitted to the bar in 1815 and practiced law in nearby Plainfield, Massachusetts. He would walk seven miles from home to work every day. It was on one of these commutes, in December 1815, that he saw a single bird flying on the horizon and was inspired to write his poem "To a Waterfowl".