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THREE GREAT POEMS 
 
 THANA TOP SIS 
 
 FLOOD OF YEARS 
 
 AMONG THE TREES 
 
 BY 
 
 William Cullen Bryant 
 7 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY 
 
 W. J. Linton and J. M.cEntee 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 27 6r* 2g West 23d Street 
 
 |V^5 
 
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 THANATOPSIS, ILLUSTRATED BY IV. y. LINTON. 
 
 Copyright, 
 
 1S77, 
 
 By G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS. 
 
 FLOOD OF YEARS, ILLUSTRATED BY W. J. LINTON. 
 Copyright, 
 
 i»77. 
 By (',. P. PUTNAM'S SONS. 
 
 AMONCr THE TREES, ILLUSTRATED BY y. Mc ENTEE. 
 
 Copyright, 
 
 1874, 
 
 Bv G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS. 
 
*0 
 
 THAN A TO PS IS. 
 
 O 
 
I 
 
THE ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 — Indebtedness acknowledged to David Scott and 
 William Blake and (almost unknown as an artist) Isaac. 
 Taylor, the author of The Natural History of Enthusiasm, 
 The Physical Theory of Another Life, etc. — 
 
 Designed and engraved by W. J. Linton. 
 
THANATOPSIS. 
 
 ' I "O HIM who in the love of nature holds 
 •*- Communion with her visible forms, she 
 speaks 
 A various language ; for his gayer hours 
 She has a voice of gladness, and a smile 
 And eloquence of beauty, and she glides 
 Into his darker musings, with a mild 
 And healing sympathy, that steals away 
 Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts 
 
Under the open sky. 
 
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight 
 
 Over thy spirit, and sad images 
 
 Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, 
 
 And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, 
 
 Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart ; — 
 
 Go forth, under the open sky, and list 
 
 To Nature's teachings, while from all around — 
 
 Earth and her waters, and the depths of air — 
 
 Comes a still voice — Yet a few days, and thee 
 
 The all-beholding sun shall see no more 
 
 In all his course ; nor yet in the cold ground, 
 
In the cold ground. 
 
Where thy pale form is laid, with many tears, 
 
 Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist 
 
 Thy image. Earth, that nourish'd thee, shall claim 
 
 Thy growth to be resolved to earth again, 
 
 And, lost each human trace, surrendering up 
 
 Thine individual being, shalt thou go 
 
 To mix forever with the elements, — 
 
 To be a brother to the insensible rock, 
 
 And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain 
 
 Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak 
 
 Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould. 
 
Resolved to earth again. 
 
Yet not to thine eternal resting-place 
 Shalt thou retire alone — nor couldst thou wish 
 Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down 
 With patriarchs of the infant world — with kings, 
 The powerful of the earth — the wise, the good, 
 Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past, 
 All in one mighty sepulchre. — The hills 
 Rock-ribb'd, and ancient as the sun, — the vales 
 Stretching in pensive quietness between ; ^ . 
 
 The venerable woods — rivers that move JBf 
 
 In majesty, and the complaining brooks 
 
{Unto dust shalt thou return. — Gen. 3: 19.) 
 
That make the meadows green ; and, pour d round 
 Old Ocean's grey and melancholy waste, — [all, 
 Are but the solemn decorations all 
 Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, 
 The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, 
 Are shining on the sad abodes of death,' 
 Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread 
 The globe are but a handful to the tribes 
 That slumber in its bosom. — Take the wings 
 Of morning, and the Barcan desert pierce, 
 Or lose thyself in the continuous woods 
 Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound 
 Save his own dashings — yet the dead are there ; 
 
- -: ^;Z~ '^'--"----i 
 
 Old ocean's grey and melancholy luaste. 
 
And millions in those solitudes, since first 
 
 The flight of years began, have laid them down 
 
 In their last sleep — the dead reign there alone. 
 
 So shalt thou rest, — and what if thou withdraw 
 In silence from the living — and no friend 
 Take note of thy departure ? All that breathe 
 Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh 
 When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care 
 Plod on, and each one, as before, will chase 
 
The dead reign there.— Exodus 12 : 30. 
 
His favorite phantom : yet all these shall leave 
 
 Their mirth and their employments, and shall come 
 
 And make their bed with thee. As the long train 
 
 Of ages glide away, the sons of men, 
 
 The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes 
 
 In the full strength of years, matron and maid, 
 
 The speechless babe, and the grey-headed man, — 
 
 Shall one by one be gather'd to thy side, 
 
 By those who, in their turn, shall follow them. 
 
 So live, that when thy summons comes to join 
 The innumerable caravan, that moves 
 To that mysterious realm, where each shall take 
 His chamber in the silent halls of death, 
 
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night 
 Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustain'd and soothed 
 By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, 
 Like one who draws the drapery of his couch 
 About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. 
 
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THE FLOOD OF YEARS. 
 
W jLLIAIV| CU LI£nJ|J RYA NT 
 
 NEW YOSK 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 1879 
 
Copyright by 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, 
 
 1877. 
 
THE ILLUSTRATIONS 
 DESIGNED AND ENGRAVED 
 
 BY 
 
 W. T. LINTON. 
 

 A Mighty Hand, from an exhaustless urn, 
 Pours forth the never-ending Flood of Years 
 Among the nations. How the rushing waves 
 Bear all before them ! On their foremost edge, 
 And there alone, is Life ; the Present there 
 Tosses and foams and fills the air with roar 
 Of mingled noises. 
 
THE FLOOD OF YEARS. 
 
 There are they who toil, 
 And they who strive, and they who feast, and they 
 Who hurry to and fro. The sturdy hind — 
 Woodman and delver with the spade — are there, 
 And busy artisan beside his bench, 
 And pallid student with his written roll. 
 A moment on the mounting billow seen — 
 The flood sweeps over them and they are gone. 
 There groups of revelers, whose brows are twined 
 With roses, ride the topmost swell awhile, 
 

THE FLOOD OF YEARS. 
 
 And as they raise their flowing cups to touch 
 
 The clinking brim to brim, are whirled beneath 
 
 The waves and disappear. I hear the jar 
 
 Of beaten drums, and thunders that break forth 
 
 From cannon, where the advancing billow sends 
 
 Up to the sight long files of armed men, 
 
 That hurry to the charge through flame and smoke. 
 
 The torrent bears them under, whelmed and hid, 
 
 Slayer and slain, in heaps of bloody foam. 
 
 Down go the steed and rider ; the plumed chief 
 
 Sinks with his followers ; the head that wears 
 
 The imperial diadem goes down beside 
 
 The felon's with cropped ear and branded cheek. 
 

 
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THE FLOOD OF YEARS. 
 
 A funeral train — the torrent sweeps away 
 
 Bearers and bier and mourners. By the bed 
 
 Of one who dies men gather sorrowing, 
 
 And women weep aloud ; the flood rolls on ; 
 
 The wail is stifled, and the sobbing group 
 
 Borne under. Hark to that shrill sudden shout — 
 
 The cry of an applauding multitude 
 
 Swayed by some loud-tongued orator, who wields 
 
 The living mass as if he were its soul. 
 
 The waters choke the shout and all is still. 
 
 Lo, next, a kneeling crowd and one who spreads 
 
 The hands in prayer ; the engulfing wave o'ertakes 
 
 And swallows them and him. 
 
THE FLOOD OF YEARS. 
 
 A sculptor wields 
 The chisel, and the stricken marble grows 
 To beauty ; at his easel, eager-eyed, 
 A painter stands, and sunshine at his touch 
 Gathers upon the canvas, and life glows ; 
 A poet, as he paces to and fro, 
 Murmurs his sounding lines. Awhile they ride 
 The advancing billow, till its tossing crest 
 Strikes them and flings them under while their tasks 
 Are yet unfinished. See a mother smile 
 On her young babe that smiles to her again — 
 The torrent wrests it from her arms ; she shrieks, 
 And weeps, and midst her tears is carried down. 
 
THE FLOOD OF YEARS. 
 
 A beam like that of moonlight turns the spray- 
 To glistening pearls ; two lovers, hand in hand, 
 Rise on the billowy swell and fondly look 
 Into each other's eyes. The rushing flood 
 Flings them apart ; the youth goes down ; the 
 
 maid, 
 With hands outstretched in vain and streaming 
 
 eyes, 
 Waits for the next high wave to follow him. 
 An aged man succeeds ; his bending form 
 Sinks slowly ; mingling with the sullen stream 
 Gleam the white locks and then are seen no more. 
 
 Lo, wider grows the stream ; a sea-like flood 
 Saps earth's walled cities ; massive palaces 
 Crumble before it ; fortresses and towers 
 
THE FLOOD OF YEARS. 
 
 Dissolve in the swift waters ; populous realms 
 Swept by the torrent, see their ancient tribes 
 Engulfed and lost, their very languages 
 Stifled and never to be uttered more. 
 
 I pause and turn my eyes and, looking back, 
 Where that tumultuous flood has passed, I see 
 The silent Ocean of the Past, a waste 
 Of waters weltering: over graves, its shores 
 Strewn with the wreck of fleets, where mast and 
 
 hull 
 Drop away piecemeal ; battlemented walls 
 Frown idly, green with moss, and temples stand 
 Unroofed, forsaken by the worshippers. 
 There lie memorial stones, whence time has gnawed 
 The graven legends, thrones of kings o'erturned, 
 The broken altars of forgotten gods, 
 
THE FLOOD OF YEARS. 
 
 Foundations of old cities, and long streets 
 Where never fall of human foot is heard 
 Upon the desolate pavement. I behold 
 Dim glimmerings of lost jewels far within 
 The sleeping waters, diamond, sardonyx, 
 Ruby and topaz, pearl and chrysolite, 
 Once glittering at the banquet on fair brows 
 That long ago were dust ; and all around, 
 Strewn on the waters of that silent sea, 
 Are withering bridal wreaths, and glossy locks 
 Shorn from fair brows by loving hands, and scrolls 
 O'erwritten, — haply with fond words of love 
 And vows of friendship — and fair pages flung 
 Fresh from the printer's engine. There they lie 
 A moment and then sink away from sight. 
 

- -... 
 
THE FLOOD OF YEARS. 
 
 I look, and the quick tears are in my eyes, 
 For I behold, in every one of these, 
 A blighted hope, a separate history 
 Of human sorrow, telling of dear ties 
 Suddenly broken, dreams of happiness 
 Dissolved in air, and happy days, too brief, 
 That sorrowfully ended, and I think 
 How painfully must the poor heart have beat 
 In bosoms without number, as the blow 
 Was struck that slew their hope or broke their 
 peace. 
 
 Sadly I turn, and look before, where yet 
 The Flood must pass, and I behold a mist 
 
THE FLOOD OF YEARS. 
 
 Where swarm dissolving forms, the brood of Hope, 
 Divinely fair, that rest on banks of flowers 
 Or wander among rainbows, fading soon 
 And reappearing, haply giving place 
 To shapes of grisly aspect, such as Fear 
 Molds from the idle air ; where serpents lift 
 The head to strike, and skeletons stretch forth 
 The bony arm in menace. Further on 
 A belt of darkness seems to bar the way, 
 Long, low and distant, where the Life that Is 
 Touches the Life to Come. The Flood of Years 
 Rolls toward it, near and nearer. It must pass 
 That dismal barrier. What is there beyond ? 
 Hear what the wise and good have said. 
 
THE FLOOD OF YEARS. 
 
 Beyond 
 That belt of darkness still the years roll on 
 More gently, but with not less mighty sweep. 
 They gather up again and softly bear 
 All the sweet lives that late were overwhelmed 
 And lost to sio^ht — all that in them was grood, 
 Noble, and truly great and worthy of love — 
 The lives of infants and ingenuous youths, 
 Sages and saintly women who have made 
 Their households happy — all are raised and borne 
 By that great current in its onward sweep, 
 Wandering and rippling with caressing waves 
 Around green islands, fragrant with the breath 
 
 Of flowers that never wither. 
 

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THE ELOOD OE' YEARS. 
 
 So they pass, 
 From stage to stage, along the shining course 
 Of that fair river broadening like a sea. 
 As its smooth eddies curl along their way, 
 They bring old friends together ; hands are clasped 
 In joy unspeakable ; the mother's arms 
 Again are folded round the child she loved 
 And lost. Old sorrows are forgotten now, 
 Or but remembered to make sweet the hour 
 That overpays them ; wounded hearts that bled 
 Or broke are healed forever. 
 

THE FLOOD OF YEARS. 
 
 In the room 
 Of this grief-shadowed Present there shall be 
 A Present in whose reign no grief shall gnaw 
 The heart, and never shall a tender tie 
 Be broken — in whose reign the eternal Change 
 That waits on growth and action shall proceed 
 With everlasting Concord hand in hand. 
 
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AMONG 
 
 HE TREES 
 

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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
Oh ye who love to overhang the springs, 
 And stand by running waters, ye whose bou< 
 Make beautiful the rocks o'er which they play, 
 Who pile with foliage the great hills, and rear 
 A paradise upon the lonely plain, 
 "frees of the forest and the open field 
 Have ye no sense of being ? 
 
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 Does the air, 
 The pure air, which I breathe with gladness, pass 
 In gushes o'er your delicate lungs, your leaves, ,j»i 
 All unenjoyed ? When on your Winter-sleep 
 The sun shines warm, have ye no dreams of Spring? 
 And, when the glorious Spring-time comes at last, 
 Have ye no joy of all your bursting buds, 
 And fragrant blooms, and melody of birds 
 To which your young leaves shiver ? 
 
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Do ye strive 
 And wrestle with the wind, yet know it not ? 
 Feel ye no glory in your strength when he, 
 The exhausted Blusterer, flies beyond the hills, 
 And leaves you stronger yet ? Or have ye not 
 A sense of loss when he has stripped your leaves, 
 Yet tender, and has splintered your fair boughs ? 
 Does the loud bolt that smites you from the cloud 
 And rends you, fall unfelt ? 
 
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Do there not run 
 Strange shudderings through your fibers when 
 the axe , : 
 
 Is raised against you, and the shining blade "^ 
 Deals blow on blow, until, with all their boughs, 
 Your summits waver and ye fall to earth ? . 
 
 
Know ye no sadness when the hurricane 
 Has swept the wood and snapped its sturdy stems 
 Asunder, or has wrenched, from out the soil, 
 The mightiest with their circles of strong roots, 
 And piled the ruin all along his path ? 
 
 Nay, doubt we not that under the rough rind, 
 In the green veins of these fair growths of earth, 
 There dwells a nature that receives delight 
 From all the gentle processes of life, 
 And shrinks from loss of being. Dim and faint 
 May be the sense of pleasure and of pain, 
 As in our dreams ; but, haply, real still. 
 
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Our sorrows touch you not. We watch beside 
 The beds of those who languish or who die, 
 And minister in sadness, while our hearts 
 Offer perpetual prayer for life and ease 
 And health to the beloved sufferers. 
 But ye, while anxious fear and fainting hope 
 Are in our chambers, ye rejoice without. 
 The funeral goes forth ; a silent train 
 Moves slowly from the desolate home ; our hearts 
 Are breaking as we lay away the loved, 
 Whom we shall see no more, in their last rest, 
 Their little cells within the burial-place. 
 
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 Ye have no part in this distress ; for still "\m 
 
 The February sunshine steeps your boughs 
 And tints the buds and swells the leaves within ; 
 While the song-sparrow, warbling from her perch, 
 Tells you that Spring is near. 
 

 The wind of May 
 Is sweet with breath of orchards, in whose boughs 
 The bees and every insect of the air 
 Make a perpetual murmur of delight, 
 And by whose flowers the humming-bird hangs poised 
 In air, and draws their sweets and darts away. 
 The linden, in the fervors of July, 
 Hums with a louder concert. When the wind 
 Sweeps the broad forest in its summer prime, 
 As when some master-hand exulting sweeps 
 The keys of some great organ, ye give forth 
 The music of the woodland depths, a hymn 
 Of gladness and of thanks. 
 
^.-^Vr^^fSSt 
 
 
 The hermit-thrush 
 Pipes his sweet note to make your arches ring, 
 The faithful robin, from the wayside elm, 
 Carols all day to cheer his sitting mate. 
 And when the Autumn comes, the kings of earth, 
 In all their majesty, are not arrayed 
 As ye are, clothing the broad mountain-side, 
 And spotting the smooth vales with red and 
 
 gold. 
 While, swaying to the sudden breeze, ye flingjj 
 Your nuts to earth, and the brisk squirrel 
 
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 To gather them, and barks with childish glee, 
 And scampers with them to his hollow oak. 
 
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Thus, as the seasons pass, ye keep alive 
 The cheerfulness of nature, till in time 
 The constant misery which wrings the heart 
 Relents, and we rejoice with you again, ^ 
 And glory in your beauty ; till once more 
 We look with pleasure on your vanished leaves, 
 That gayly glance in sunshine, and can hear, 
 Delighted, the soft answer which your boughs 
 Utter in whispers to the babbling brook. 
 
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 I know not who, but thank him that h 
 
 left 
 
 The tree to flourish where the acorn fell, 
 And join these later days to that far time 
 While yet the Indian hunter drew the bow 
 In the dim woods, and the white woodman first 
 Opened these fields to sunshine, turned the soil 
 And strewed the wheat. An unremembered 
 
 Past 
 Broods, like a presence, 'mid the long gray 
 
 boughs 
 Of this old tree, which has outlived so long 
 The fitting generations of mankind. 
 
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Ye have no history. I ask in vain -•sd^?^ 
 
 Who planted on the slope this lofty group $$ : 
 Of ancient pear-trees that with spring-time burst -l^f? 
 Into such breadth of bloom. One bears a scar 
 Where the quick lightning scored its trunk, yet 
 still , 
 
 It feels the breath of Spring, and every May 
 Is white with blossoms. Who it was that laid ^ 
 Their infant roots in earth, and tenderly % 
 Cherished the delicate sprays, I ask in vain, 
 Yet bless the unknown hand to which I owe 
 This annual festival of bees, these songs fv 
 Of birds within their leafy screen, these shouts 
 Of joy from children gathering up the fruit 
 Shaken in August from the willing boughs. 5 f| 
 
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 Ye that my hands have planted, or have spared, % 
 
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 Beside the way, or in the orchard-ground, '•'SiF i 
 Or in the open meadow, ye whose boughs 
 With every summer spread a wider shade, 
 Whose herd in coming years shall lie at rest 
 Beneath your noontide shelter ? . ^«^^N 
 
Who shall pluck 
 Your ripened fruit ? who grave, as was the wont^ ^1 
 Of simple pastoral ages, on the rind 
 Of my smooth beeches some beloved name ? 
 Idly I ask ; yet may the eyes that look 
 Upon you, in your later, nobler growth 
 Look also on a nobler age than ours ; 
 
An age when, in the eternal strife between 
 
 Evil and Good, the Power of Good shall win 
 
 A grander mastery ; when kings no more ^%4 
 
 Shall summon millions from the plough to learrq 
 
 The trade of slaughter, and of populous realms ^ 
 
 Make camps of war ; when in our younger land 
 
 The hand of ruffian Violence, that now 
 
 Is insolently raised to smite, shall fall 
 
 Unnerved before the calm rebuke of law, 
 
 And Fraud, his sly confederate shrink, in shame, vJ^W^p) 
 
 Back to his covert, and forego his prey. Gi^V^/ 
 
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