*J 
 
4 
 
 J LIBRARY OP" CONGRESS .# 
 
 # .... _ $ 
 
 W ia P : W"9to|U°. $ 
 
 ^^ -A 1 
 
 E51- 
 
 J UNITED STATES OP AMERICA. J 
 
 \ 
 
AMONG THE TREES 
 
 ■ 
 
-;>^ $m 
 
 
 
 J':/?' 
 
 »» " 
 
 
 
 
 « 
 
 WMmBaMmMm 
 
 
 
Among the Trees 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 
 
 X 1 1 u a 1 v a 1 1 tr 
 
 FROM DESIGNS BY JERVIS McENTEE, ENGRAVED BY HA R LEY 
 
 CO 
 
 /3*j^_ 
 
 NEW YORK 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 Fourth Avenue and Twenty-third Street 
 

 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. 
 
 John F. Trow S: Son, 
 
 Printers and Elkctkotypf.rs, 
 
 205-213 Hast -s.it h St., 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
Oh ye who love to overhang the spri 
 And stand by running waters, ye whose 
 Make beautiful the rocks o'er which 
 Who pile with foliage the great hills 
 A paradise upon the lonely plain, * 
 Trees of the forest and the open field 
 Have ye no sense of being? 
 
uocb me air 
 
 The pure air, which I breathe with gladness 
 In gushes o'er your delicate lungs, your 
 All unenjoyed ? When on your Winter 
 The sun shines warm, have ye no dreams 
 And, when the glorious Spring-time comes 
 Have ye no joy of all your bursting buds, 
 And fragrant blooms, and melody of birds 
 To which your young leaves shiver ? 
 
 
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, I 
 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 ? 
 
 ■;# ,; 
 
 iiiiis 
 
 13 
 
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, /^\J*g£ 
 Your summits waver and ye fall to earth ? 
 
 T5 
 
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. 
 
 i7 
 
. . i r 
 
 
 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. 
 
 19 
 
5 bsgl 
 
 J< 
 
 f 
 
 
 
 
 Ye have no part in this distress ; for still 
 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. 
 
 2 3 
 
,',;.;>: > 
 
 < ' .■'-, ■■" - -:? 
 
 The hermit-thrush IT 
 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 flingj 
 Your nuts to earth, and the brisk squirrel 
 
 comes 
 To gather them, and barks with childish glee^ 
 And scampers with them to his hollow oak. 
 
 1 
 
 ■ 
 
 Wmm 
 
 W- 
 
 'r- 
 
 
 
 V* 
 
^■J 
 
 ■^;4 
 
 T0 < 
 
 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. 
 
 £,j \ 
 
 
 27 
 
Ye have no history. I cannot know 
 Who, when the hillside trees were hewn away, 
 Haply two centuries since, bade spare this oak, 
 Leaning to shade, with his irregular arms, 
 Low-bent and long, the fount that from rrjs roots 
 Slips through a bed of cresses toward the bay. 
 
 ■HP 
 
 IP 
 fflk 
 
I know not who, but thank him that he 
 
 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. 
 
 Hp- „ 
 
 V4: 
 
 3 1 
 
Ye have no history. I ask in vain 
 
 Who planted on the slope this lofty group ^ffe r ^> m«3~ 
 Of ancient pear-trees that with spring-time burst 
 Into such breadth of bloom. One bears a scar 
 Where the quick lightning scored its trunk, yet 
 
 
 Who it was that laid .. 
 
 still 
 It feels the breath of Spring, and every May 
 Is white with blossoms 
 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 L& 
 Of birds within their leafy screen, these shouts 
 Of joy from children gathering up the fruit 
 
 Shaken in August from th< 
 
 iin£f boup"h< 
 
 33 
 
Ye that my hands have planted, or have spared, 
 Beside the way, or in the orchard-ground, S$fo 
 Or in the open meadow, ye whose boughs ilBgffi^%sJ£ ; 
 With every summer spread a wider shade, 
 Whose herd in coming years shall lie at rest ; 'f fefij 
 Beneath your noontide shelter ? . ^.^£MWf- 
 
 35 
 

 - : 
 
 
 :■ 
 
 
 I; 
 
 ;„ J a M H teMBHi 
 
 
 E 
 
 .■■■,■■ 
 
 
 H 
 
 
 i ijp; 
 
 
 ', l, V'. 
 
 Who shall pluck «| 
 
 Your ripened fruit ? who grave, as was the wont sistfyM'f? 
 Of simple pastoral ages, on the rind ^' /WO* 
 
 Of my smooth beeches some beloved name 7_ \ Mi 
 Idly I ask ; yet may the eyes that look f(^# f 1 ^^ 
 
 Upon you, in your later, nobler growth, _ '-- #Wl^%^ ' 
 Look also on a nobler age than ours ; 
 
 37 
 
An age when, in the eternal strife between 
 Evil and Good, the Power of Good shall win 
 A grander mastery ; when kings no more 
 Shall summon millions from the plough to learnf 
 The trade of slaughter, and of populous realms 
 Make camps of war ; when in our younger land 
 
 The hand of ruffian Violence, that now ^ 
 
 if 
 Is insolently raised to smite, shall fall 
 
 Unnerved before the calm rebuke of law, 
 
 And Fraud, his sly confederate shrink, in shame ^Y^jj^y 
 
 Back to his covert, and forego his prey 
 
 w 
 
 39