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 CONTENTS 
 PAGE 
 NEE Oe reese Re le oe es 7 
 EE eee he hc. iy Lotus sus ee uavedocewds 23 
 ENUM, ee RSS 3. CAivlga et oa wet de wb eletie'es 24 
 EMR Tenet Aes oy Swine de Sewtcaes 24 
 Meee vening Wind .. 2... 0.202... e eee c acces 29 
 TS OR eee fe ay ee 31 
 PT SIVOPOUNOTAL 2. o.8 Sees ee pees Pie idle bet 35 
 IROL Lig hiatha diy deh. bles bude ceteris’ ar 
 MMMMEESTEQDIE Soe ak als hanced ue ce bine aes 4] 
 SS ee) a 43 
 DeMIPT OGL Cite PTAITICS. 0... fol. ese eevee ved Es. ae 
 Serer ttcaims Island... .. 22.6.4 .i csc eee enon 47 
 inicio id iciow-e vale sc Uvips oe one vbed we 48 
 MMI TNIVEL . Sec es Mh at. Bate hu late Sok ba? A pt 
 el irae lk bah snk a itl yrs,» o.vre-sleie nie b's 53 
 Monument Mountain........... REAR R Aik xl taees ek 55 
 i. Song of Marion’s Men........ aS a UPN 2 SEB 60 
 MEI Y ATTION“ wc ale ops vnc ca ceecssceis vthes seve. G2 
 NEM I SPS 55 o.oo Say wile! D's «wind w vd oldWs Ge soa ble 64 
 ‘Oh Fairest of the Pca Was Clee taney ON Re aad GS 
 Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood........... 66 
 MTT ass 6.08 ue vn be Vw ieivelv newline aes 68 
 “‘T Broke the Spell that Held Me Long”.......... 71 
 =; [he Conjunction of Jupiter and Venus............ 72 
 Deere ringed: Gentian. ..:........ccc.s csr eeuwe'e 75 
 = ‘‘Innocent Child and Snow-White Flower”........ 76 
 o@ An Indian at the Burial-Place of His Fathers..... a0 
 
 
 
 i, JO0D 
 
4 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 To'a Cloudy. cee ties oe es ee ee 80 
 Yellow Violets ok oy 6 ce 81 
 ‘“‘T Cannot Forget with what Fervid Devotion”.... 82 
 Mi atation oc\etiis ses co nee ie eer Pe Pa Se 84 
 Hymn to the North Star... 2.00.22), pce 85 
 The Twenty-second of December................. 86 
 Hymn of the Waldenses:./...... .Z,0e50 een 87 
 Song of the Stars... ecb 2, GY Lo. ane 88 
 ‘*No Man Knoweth His Sepulchre”............... 90 
 ‘Blessed are They that Mourn™:..22. oc5 see 90 
 Death of the Flowers). 0.. 02 c.05 «. en eee 91 
 To'a) Waterfowl ix so. duisie eo sya estas ote 6 aa 93 
 The Battle-field ccc. 000. Ad sc seals «5.0 che eee 95 
 The Winds). cc Sone da oo Wen es ee 96 
 Green Mountain Boys... .........'d. «ose 99 
 Future Lite nc eho icic eal alan = © alee 100 
 Old'Man’s Counsel J i).). «2. ds ode) Sais cn eee 101 
 An Evening Reverie.............. PEE rr se 105 
 Antiquity of ‘Freedom....£. 0)... 7006 0s sae 108 
 A’ Hymn of the Seas... 02200277, ee ae 111 
 Stream of Life . i. sce. cake ca deciles ae ne 113 
 Midsummer 0.6 ocis c's odes desk ov cian ore tere eae 114 
 Green ,RIVEL 6 soe 505s 50.0 0s l0'4\e alee abe a aieine 114 
 A Winter: Piece. as. 00's 4's. « Win oho oe nn sg 117 
 Hymn to Death 0.0505 oo). ied a aren 4 ale 121 
 Lines on Revisiting the Country..........0.sess=s 127 
 ‘‘Upon the Moumtain’s Distant Head” ............ 129 
 Journeyof Lifes. es ain eines vee eles 0 0 y 0s 9 gene 129 
 Love’ and Folly... 03505 ois sie eis 060 eo 5 /anke 130 
 Love Of God wis oelic se cice + 4 sis slele 40 alee anna 132 
 Fearthy oe os leu: sleywit ibe othe eek Ain 0 6 to at 133 
 Catterskill Falls oo. 6. csie 5.4 46 Sele lelee ate an 137 
 | SS ce OMI EWM IERE EMER OE 14} 
 
CONTENTS 5 
 
 PAGE 
 NRIs sia. coulis ox e6ale elk se 0's, seas oad ogee ae 143 
 Se Ee fel 5 50 Sk VAs lo 6 0's & bine vc o 6 ne Wedenli'n 148 
 ERS ole a bcin'da.e 6 ds'ccd o siege bese bie eine 149 
 ETOP NS sc becca divs 60s bacaescediesteaun 150 
 SiR USER g Cs a's ou c oeje a Ad's os nin valve siess 152 
 SUI ME TGS RCHL Sia sip tie clvinid eles 4 cle's cele ewes eect EDS 
 POST) ST VANIETIL. So cas oases eh ade eee eee bs bees 154 
 Ode for an Agricultural Celebration .............. 156 
 UTM CME TUE tt Pe Br is: sue! hohe eiele aie atacaip. ala ollnre LST 
 MINER ees atresia gle a's gists GBe esl! ie e sce 160 
 NE Ee DET cia usa Gigs’ w'v 6's So) w poo tale, Sales 161 
 UMMM ANIME Word tr orac hic gtuia cles aly. sia'die'a bw icel¥ doe 5 wlace she'd 161 
 UPEMCMCMNNREEN ERIC Dette 2 has LAG a ow cla Gatco Wave e's ale Bis 165 
 ea eo sie iss da Dok ad co Sas wwle dea wW'ee.s 166 
 PM ERETITOOGTE . 3. vec mine cen ccc shades salec veamove 168 
 MENT Ee oss oa ec ae xint mole ye a wee te naele a 170 
 ITE Eg oy g Aeiy oikee sb Hels ed does « dealers 172 
 Pemm mrtie tzreek AMaZ0n.. ssc. occ cceeecculeweses 173 
 MMII COV CLOT 0. 5 ss) ccie ones renin gd wees geass 174 
 NAME eT Oar he oo) d coro, Sui b. melee av eeu eb RMA Ra's 176 
 MT re ea belh da raiesed Satedee cb get 178 
 Meditation on Rhode Island Coal................. 180 
 RT ean Vie. oie ai sis ous nl 0.8. 6) slide al oie 4 dlainips 6 ai aie’ e 184 
 ee A OS SS SR 5 ei 185 
 NRE EHO ie ae a Gave: veal ea aa nic ws Ww lb ele dln ahead 186 
 SRM TETOUINTER Mire ote 5 Se wa Ce aie dw etka me minus shwiee's 189 
 UUM TITRI RODEN ra UG iis ot. Nd sta s ale Wie orate ea aca 191 
 PURIEPMBMCITAN PENITG: c's pce cicciass oa dioGmales det pee 4 193 
 ENR RNAP ME en aan en SNS OV etd cag.s yee ieee a we ae 194 
 SUMIMENET RISES EN ARTA OVAE Mollie) ci o'G)e ca doo e'b u's pd cle 'ee's 5 eehain vetele 197 
 Scene on the Banks of the Hudson............... 199 
 PRUNE LA re Gi atte Vie ig ace Vi & wed 9 aumin’n b elete clay’ 201 
 
6 7) Val § (AGNTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 Greek Boy... 563 fis Sp ena oer ‘ae 204 
 ‘*‘When the Firmament Quivers with Daylight’s 
 
 Young Beam” /..5 0. 35 14s pe oo 205 
 Vothe River Arve. .3 «css ) 2 eae oe Pee 206 
 To Cole, the Painter, Departing for Europe....... 207 
 Hymn of the City.....0..0..:03e51+s5 een 208 
 A Walk at Sunset... ... csc. 02s 6 ieee eee 209 
 Consumption .. . << 0/52: slau ws alee stale einen 212 
 The Firmament os. 0. ¢< os nea owc< setae nee ee 213 
 Greek Partisan . »). <s:. «0,6 «alee siecle @ ala aln miele one 215 
 Strange Lady, - ..)ceciicie «sinister venice so « ee 216 
 ‘‘Earth’s Children Cleave to Earth”. ...a0 eee 219 
 Hunter’s Vision. «..). 2: cic «uo tere ole «ae 220 
 A Presentiment, . .% .u..a%u os eeu be «6 «> 222 
 Child’s Fumeral oo coco ccc: slave s- cle pice eves ne 223 
 Death of Sohiller’. «<5... . 520 cu otis me «0 Se 225 
 In Memory of William Leggett................0-- 226 
 Painted Cups... .c es. sss. c ee + fa al te een 226 
 A < Dream neck 2.55 010 0 0 <ie'esy 0.40 0 wehelers sale itn eeen nan 228 
 Maiden’s Sorrow... <..c.:.2s0s005ue eee ieee 230 
 Return of Youth.........::..1 000 eee eee 231 
 NOD is.» soe 5 cco tare 0'e wulalnte ese le Gale Ola? orayeiy tne siete P2eo 
 Crowded Street. 6. 05.06 c20 0 «c's eee os dis se en 235 
 White-Footed Deer. . sc... ).. oals ud a-0 » » tle 2a1 
 Waning Moon... sc» sos. s 0 000% sles ae oe 239 
 Dnknown Way <2... ..ss00 +0 0vcnss% om 0 ee sien 241 
 Oh Mother of a Mighty Race.........33@geeeeeee 242 
 Land of Dreams: :. .... 0. .056..00. 0s sue 244 
 Burial of, Love... 2.0. cces 3 Ue esse w ce 6s ae 246 
 ‘*The May-Sun Sheds an Amber Light” MPA ek 247 
 Voice of Autumn. ofc se. A oe me Ces 248 
 
 Conqueror’s .GTave.s+...ss008s ne sow see een 250 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 —_——__—. 
 
 THE AGES 
 
 When to the common rest that crowns our 
 days, 
 
 Called in the noon of life, the good man goes, 
 
 Or full of years, and ripe in wisdom, lays 
 
 His silver temples in their last repose; 
 
 When, o’er the buds of youth, the death- wind 
 
 blows, 
 
 And blights the fairest; when our bitterest 
 tears 
 
 Stream, as the eyes of those that love us 
 close, 
 
 We think on what they were with many fears 
 Lest goodness die with them, and leave the 
 coming years. 
 
 And therefore, to our hearts, the days gone 
 by— 
 
 When lived the honored sage whose death 
 we wept, 
 
 And the soft virtues beamed from many an 
 eye, 
 
 And beat in many a heart that long has 
 slept— 
 
 Like spots of earth where angel-feet have 
 stepped— 
 
 7 
 
& BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Are holy; and high-dreaming bards have told 
 Of times when worth was crowned, and faith 
 
 - was kept, 
 Ere friendship grew a snare, or love waxed 
 cold— 
 _ Those pure and happy times—the golden days 
 of old. 
 
 Peace to the just man’s memory,—let it grow 
 
 Greener with years, and blossom through 
 the flight 
 
 Of ages; let the mimic canvas show 
 
 His calm benevolent features; let the light 
 
 stream on his deeds of love, that shunned 
 the sight 
 
 Of all but heaven, and, in the book of fame, 
 
 The glorious record of his virtues write, 
 
 And hold it up to men, and bid them claim 
 
 A palm like his, and catch from him the hal- 
 
 lowed flame. 
 
 But oh, despair not of their fate who rise 
 
 To dwell upon the earth when we withdraw; 
 
 Lo! the same shaft by whichthe righteous dies, 
 
 Strikes through the wretch that scoffed at 
 mercy’s law, 
 
 And trode his brethren down, and felt no awe 
 
 Of Him who will avenge them. Stainless 
 worth, 
 
 Such as the sternest age of virtue saw, 
 
 Ripens, meanwhile, till time shall call it forth 
 
 From the low, modest shade, to light and bless 
 
 the earth. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 9 
 
 Has Nature, in her calm, majestic march, 
 
 Faltered with age at last? does the bright sun 
 
 Grow dim in heaven? or, in their far blue arch, 
 
 Sparkle the crowd of stars, when day is done, 
 
 Less brightly? when the dew-lipped Spring 
 comes on, 
 
 Breathes she with air less soft, or scents the 
 sky 
 
 With flowers less fair than when her reign 
 begun? 
 
 Does prodigal Autumn, to our age, deny 
 
 The plenty that once swelled beneath his sober 
 
 eye? 
 
 Look on this beautiful world, and read the 
 truth 
 In her fair page; see, every season brings 
 New change, to her, of everlasting youth; 
 Still the green soil, with joyous living things, 
 Swarms, the wide air is full of joyous wings, 
 And myriads, still, are happy in the sleep 
 Of ocean’s azure gulfs, and where he flings 
 The restless surge. Eternal Love doth keep 
 in his complacent arms, the earth, the air, the 
 deep. 
 
 Will then the merciful One, who stamped 
 our race 
 
 With his ownimage, and who gave them sway 
 
 O’er earth, and the glad dwellers on her face, 
 
 Now that our flourishing nations far away 
 
 Are spread, where’er the moist earth drinks 
 the day, 
 
10 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Forget the ancient care that taught and nursed 
 His latest offspring? will he quench the ray 
 Infused by his own forming smile at first, 
 And leave a work so fair ‘all blighted and 
 accursed? 
 
 Oh, no! a thousand cheerful omens give 
 
 Hope of yet happier days whose dawn is nigh. 
 
 He who has tamed the elements, shall not live 
 
 The slave of his own passions; he whose eye 
 
 Unwinds the eternal dances of the sky, 
 
 And in the abyss of brightness dares to span 
 
 The sun’s broad circle, rising yet more high, 
 
 In God’s magnificent works his will shall 
 scan— 
 
 And love and peace shall make their paradise 
 
 with man. 
 
 Sit at the feet of History—through the night 
 
 Of years the steps of virtue she shall trace, 
 
 And show the earlier ages, where her sight 
 
 Can pierce the eternal shadows o’er their 
 face ;— 
 
 When from the genial cradle of our race, 
 
 Went forth the tribes of men, their pleasant lot 
 
 To choose, where palm-groves cooled their 
 dwelling place, 
 
 Or freshening rivers ran: and there forgot 
 
 The truth of heaven, and kneeled to gods that 
 
 heard them not. 
 
 Then waited not the murderer for the night, 
 But smote his brother down in the bright day, 
 And he who felt the wrong,and had the might, 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS {i 
 
 His own avenger, girt himself to slay; 
 Beside the path the unburied carcass lay; 
 The shepherd, by the fountains of the glen, 
 Fled, while the robber swept his flock away . 
 And slew his babes. Thesick, untendedthen, 
 Languished in the damp shade, and died afar 
 from men. 
 
 But misery brought in love—in passion’s 
 strife 
 
 Man gave his heart to mercy pleading long, 
 
 And sought out gentle deeds to gladden life; 
 
 The weak, against the sons of spoil and 
 wrong, 
 
 Banded, and watched their hamlets, and 
 grew strong. 
 
 States rose, and, in the shadow of their 
 might, . 
 
 The timid rested. To the reverent throng, 
 
 Grave and time-wrinkled men, with locks all 
 ‘white, 
 
 (Gave laws, and judged their strifes, and taught 
 
 the way of right; 
 
 Till bolder spirits seized the rule, and nailed 
 On men the yoke that man should never bear, 
 And drove them forth to battle: Lo! unveiled 
 The scene of those sternages! What isthere? 
 A boundless sea of blood, and the wild air 
 Moans with the crimson surges that entomb 
 Cities and bannered armies; forms that wear 
 The kingly circlet, rise amid the gloom, 
 
 O’er the dark wave, and straight are swallowed 
 
 in its womb. 
 
lz BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Those ages have no memory—but they left 
 
 A record in the desert—columns strown 
 
 On the waste sands, and statues fall’n and 
 cleft, 
 
 Heaped like a host in battle overthrown; 
 
 Vast ruins, where the mountain’s ribs of stone 
 
 Were hewn into a city; streets that spread 
 
 In the dark earth, where never breath has 
 blown | 
 
 Of heaven’s sweet air, nor foot of man dares 
 tread 
 
 The long and perilous ways—the Cities of 
 
 the Dead: 
 
 And tombs of monarchs to the clouds 
 up-piled— 
 
 They perished—but the eternal tombs 
 remain— 
 
 And the black precipice, abrupt and wild, 
 
 Pierced by long toil and hollowed to a fane ;— 
 
 Huge piers and frowning forms of gods sus- 
 tain 
 
 The everlasting arches, dark and wide, 
 
 Like the night-heaven when clouds are black 
 with rain. 
 
 But idly skill was tasked, and strength was 
 plied, 
 
 ‘All was the work of slave’s to swell a despot’s 
 
 pride. 
 
 And Virtue cannot dwell with slaves, nor 
 reign 
 
 O’er those who cower to take a tyrant’s yoke~ 
 
 She left the down-trod nations in disdain, 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 13 
 
 Anda flew to Greece, when Liberty awoke, 
 New-born, amid those beautiful vales, and 
 broke 
 Scepter and chain with her fair, youthful 
 hands: 
 As the rock shivers in the thunder-stroke. 
 And lo! in full-grown strength, an empire 
 stands 
 Of leagued and rival states, the wonder of the 
 lands. 
 
 Oh, Greece, thy flourishing cities were a spoil 
 
 Unto each other; thy hard hand oppressed 
 
 And crushed the helpless; thou didst make 
 thy soil 
 
 Drunk with the blood of those that loved thee 
 best; 
 
 And thou didst drive, from thy unnatural 
 breast, 
 
 Thy just and brave to die in distant climes: 
 
 Earth shuddered at thy deeds, and sighed for 
 rest 
 
 From thine abomiazations; after times 
 
 That yet shall read thy tale, will tremble at 
 
 thy crimes. 
 
 Yet there was that within thee which has 
 saved 
 
 Thy glory, and redeemed thy blotted name: 
 
 The story of thy better deeds, engraved 
 
 On fame’sunmouldering pillar, puts toshame 
 
 Our chiller virtue; the high art to tame 
 
 The whirlwind of the passions was thine 
 own; 
 
14 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 And the pure ray, that from thy bosom came, 
 Far over many a land and age has shone, 
 And mingles with the light that beams from 
 
 God’s own throne. 
 
 And Rome, thy sterner, younger sister, she 
 
 Who awed the world with her imperial frown, 
 
 Rome drew the spirit of her race from thee, — 
 
 The rival of thy shame and thy renown. 
 
 Yet her degenerate children sold the crown 
 
 Of earth’s wide kingdoms to a line of slaves; 
 
 Guilt reigned, and woe with guilt, and 
 plagues came down, 
 
 Till the north broke its floodgates, and the 
 waves 
 
 Whelmed the degraded race, and weltered o’er 
 
 their graves. 
 
 Vainly that ray of brightness from above, 
 That shone around the Galilean lake, 
 The light of hope, the leading star of love, 
 Struggled, the darkness of that day to break; 
 Even its own faithless guardians strove to 
 slake, } 
 In fogs of earth, the pure immortal flame; 
 And priestly hands, for Jesus’ blessed sake, 
 Were red with blood, and charity became, 
 In that stern war of forms,a mockery anda name. 
 
 They triumphed, and less bloody rites were 
 kept 
 
 Within the quiet of the convent cell; 
 
 The well-fed inmates pattered prayer, and 
 slept. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 15 
 
 And sinned, and liked their easy penance 
 well. 
 
 Where pleasant was the spot for men to 
 dwell, 
 
 Amid its fair broad lands the abbey lay, 
 
 Sheltering dark orgies that were shame to tell, 
 
 And cowled and barefoot beggars swarmed 
 the way, 
 
 Allin their convent weeds,of black, and white, 
 
 and gray. 
 
 Oh, sweetly the returning muses’ strain 
 
 Swelled over that famed stream, whose 
 gentle tide 
 
 In their bright lap the Etrurian vales detain, 
 
 Sweet, as when winter storms have ceased 
 to chide, 
 
 Anda all the new-leaved woods resounding 
 wide, 
 
 Send out wild hymns upon the scented air. 
 
 Lo! to the smiling Arno’s classic side 
 
 The emulous nations of the west repair, 
 
 And kindle their quenched urns, and drink 
 
 fresh spirit there. 
 
 Still, Heaven deferred the hour ordained to 
 rend 
 
 From saintly rottenness the sacred stole 
 
 And cowl and worshipped shrine could still 
 defend 
 
 The wretch with felon stains upon his soul; 
 
 And crimes were set to sale, and hard his 
 dole 
 
1€ BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Who could not bribe a passage to the skies: 
 And vice beneath the mitre’s kind control, 
 Sinned gayly on, and grew to giant size, 
 Shielded by priestly power, and watched by 
 priestly eyes. 
 
 At last the earthquake came—the shock, that 
 hurled 
 
 To dust, in many fragments dashed and 
 strown, 
 
 The throne whose roots were in another 
 world, 
 
 And whose far-stretching shadow awed our 
 own. 
 
 From many a proud monastic pile, o’er- 
 thrown, 
 
 Fear-struck, the inmates rushed and fled; 
 
 The web, that for a thousand years had 
 grown 
 
 O’er prostrate Europe, in that day of dread 
 
 Crumbled and fell, as fire dissolves the flaxen 
 
 thread. 
 
 The spirit of that day is still awake, 
 
 And spreads himself, and shall not sleep 
 again; 
 
 But through the idle mesh of power shall 
 break, 
 
 Like billows o’er the Asian monarch’s chain; 
 
 Till men are filled with him, and feel how 
 vain, 
 
 Instead of the pure heart and innocent hands, 
 
 Are all the proud and pompous modes to gain 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 17 
 
 The smile of heaven;—till a new age 
 expands 
 Its white and holy wings above the peaceful 
 lands. 
 
 For look again on the past years;—behold, 
 
 Flown, like the nightmare’s hideous shapes, 
 away, 
 
 Full many a horrible worship, that, of old, 
 
 Held, o’er the shuddering realms, unques- 
 tioned sway: 
 
 See crimes that feared not once the eye of 
 day, 
 
 Rooted from men, without a name or place: 
 
 See nations blotted out from earth, to pay 
 
 The forfeit of deep guilt ;—with glad embrace 
 
 The fair disburdened lands welcome a noble 
 
 race. 
 
 Thus error’s monstrous shapes from earth 
 are driven, 
 
 They fade, they fly,—but truth survives 
 their. flight; 
 
 Earth has no shades to quench that beam of 
 heaven; 
 
 Each ray, that shone, in early time, to light 
 
 The faltering footsteps in the path of right, 
 
 Each gleam of clearer brightness, shed to 
 aid | 
 
 In man’s maturer day his bolder sight, 
 
 All blended, like the rainbow’s radiant braid, 
 
 Pour yet, and still shall pour, the blaze that 
 
 cannot fade. 
 
 2 Bryant’s 
 
15 
 
 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Late, from this western shore, that morning 
 chased ; 
 
 The deep and ancient night, that threw its 
 shroud 
 
 O’er the green land of groves, the beautiful 
 waste, 
 
 Nurse of full streams, and lifter up of proud 
 
 Sky-mingling mountains that o’erlook the 
 cloud. 
 
 Erewhile, where yon gay spires their bright- 
 ness rear, 
 
 Trees waved, and the brown hunter’s shouts 
 were loud 
 
 Amid the forest; and the bounding deer 
 
 Fled at the glancing plume, and the gaunt wolf 
 
 yelled near. 
 
 And where his willing waves yon bright blue 
 bay 
 
 Sends up to kiss his decorated brim, 
 
 And cradles, in his soft embrace, the gay 
 
 Young group of grassy islands born of him, 
 
 And crowding nigh, or in the distance dim, 
 
 Lifts the white throng of sails, that bear or 
 bring 
 
 The commerce of the world;—with tawny 
 limb, 
 
 And belt and beads in sunlight glistening, 
 
 The savage urged his skiff like wild bird on 
 
 the wing. 
 
 Then, all this youthful paradise around, 
 And all the broad and boundless mainland, 
 lay 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 19 
 
 Cooled by the interminabie wood, that 
 frowned 
 
 O’er mount and vale, where never summer ray 
 
 Glanced, till the strong tornado broke his 
 way 
 
 Through the gray giants of the sylvan wild; 
 
 Yet many a sheltered glade, with blossoms 
 gay, 
 
 Beneath the showery sky and sunshine mild, 
 
 Within the shaggy arms of that dark forest 
 
 smiled. 
 
 There stood the Indian hamlet, there the lake 
 
 Spread its blue sheet that flashed with many 
 an oar, 
 
 Where the brown otter plunged him from 
 the brake, 
 
 And the deer drank: as the light gale flew 
 
 Oo ef, 
 The twinkling maize-field Hreticd on the 
 shore; 
 And while that spot, so wild, and lone, and 
 fair, 
 
 A look of glad and innocent beauty wore, 
 And peace was on the earth and in the air, 
 The warrior lit the pile, and bound his captive 
 there: 
 
 Not unavenged—the foeman, from the wood, 
 Beheld the deed, and when the midnight 
 shade 
 - Wasstillest, gorged his battle-axe with blood; 
 All died—the wailing babe—the shrieking 
 maid— 
 
20 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 And in the flood of fire that scathed the glade, 
 The roofs went down; but deep the silence 
 grew, 
 When on the dewy woods the day-beam 
 played; 
 No more the cabin smokes rose wreathed 
 and blue, 
 And ever, by their lake, lay moored the light 
 canoe. 
 
 Look now abroad—another race has filled 
 
 These populous borders—wide the wood 
 recedes, 
 
 And towns shoot up, and fertile realms are 
 tilled; 
 
 The land is full of harvests and green meads; 
 
 Streams numberless, that many a fountain 
 feeds, 
 
 Shine, disembowered, and give to. sun and 
 breeze 
 
 Their virgin waters; the full region leads 
 
 New colonies forth, that toward the western . 
 seas 
 
 Spread, like a rapid flame among the autumnal 
 
 trees. 
 
 Here the free spirit of mankind, at length, 
 
 Throws its last fetters off; and who shall 
 place 
 
 A limit to the giant’s unchained strength, 
 
 Or curb his swiftness in the forward race? 
 
 Far, like tne comet’s way through infinite 
 space, 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 21 
 
 Stretches the long untravelled path of light 
 
 {nto the depths of ages: we may trace, 
 
 Distant, the brightening glory of its light, 
 Till the receding rays are lost to human sight. 
 
 Europe is given a prey to sterner fates, 
 
 And writhes in shackies; strong the arms 
 that chain 
 
 To earth her struggling multitude of states; 
 
 She too is strong, and might not chafe in 
 vain ; 
 
 Against them, but shake off the vampyre 
 train 
 
 That batten on her blood, and break their 
 net. 
 
 Yes, she shall look on brighter days, and 
 
 gain 
 
 The meed of worthier deeds; the moment set 
 
 To rescue and raise up, draws near—but is not 
 
 yet. 
 
 But thou, my country, thou shalt never fall, 
 
 But with thy children—thy maternal care, 
 
 Thy lavish love, thy blessings showered on 
 all— 
 
 These are thy fetters—seas and stormy air 
 
 Are the wide barrier of thy borders, where, 
 
 Among thy gallant sons that guard thee well, 
 
 Thou laugh’st at enemies: who shall then 
 declare 
 
 The date of thy deep-founded strength, or tell 
 
 How happy, in thy lap, the sons of men shall 
 
 dwell? 
 
~ 
 
 22 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 TO THER SPAS. 
 
 Thou unrelenting Past! 
 
 Strong are the barriers round thy dark domain, 
 And fetters, sure and fast, 
 
 Hold all that enter thy unbreathing reign. 
 
 Far in thy realm withdrawn 
 
 Old empires sit in sullenness and gloom, 
 And glorious ages gone 
 
 Lie deep within the shadow of thy womb. 
 
 Childhood, with all its mirth, 
 Youth, Manhood, Age, that draws us to the 
 ground, 
 And last, Man’s Life on earth, 
 Glide to thy dim dominions, and are bound. 
 
 Thou hast my better years, 
 Thou hast my earlier friends—the good—the 
 kind, 
 Yielded to thee with tears— 
 The venerable form—the exalted mind. 
 
 My spirit yearns to bring | 
 The lost ones back—yearns with desire intense, 
 And struggles hard to wring 
 Thy bolts apart, and pluck thy captives 
 thence. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 23 
 
 In vain—thy gates deny 
 All passage save to those who hence depart; 
 Nor to the streaming eye 
 Thou giv’st them back—nor to the broken 
 heart. 
 
 In thy abysses hide 
 
 Beauty and excellence unknown—to thee 
 Earth’s wonder and her pride 
 
 Are gathered, as the waters to the sea; 
 
 Labors of good to man, 
 Unpublished charity, unbroken faith,— 
 Love, that midst grief began, 
 And grew with years, and faltered not in death. 
 
 Full many a mighty name 
 
 Lurks in thy depths, unuttered, unrevered; 
 With thee are silent fame, 
 
 Forgotten arts, and wisdom disappeared. 
 
 Thine for a space are they—— 
 
 Yet shalt thou yield thy treasures up at last! 
 Thy gates shall yet give way, 
 
 Thy bolts shall fall, inexorable Past! 
 
 All that of good and fair 
 
 Has gone into thy womb from earliest time, 
 Shall then come forth, to wear 
 
 The glory and the beauty of its prime. 
 
 They have not perished—no! 
 
 Kind words, remeinbered voices once so sweet, 
 Smiles, radiant long ago, 
 
 And features, the great soul’s apparent seat; 
 
24 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 All shall come back, each tie 
 
 Of pure affection shall be knit again; 
 Alone shall Evil die, 
 
 And Sorrow dwell a prisoner in thy reign. 
 
 And then shall I behold 
 
 Him, by whose kind paternal side I sprung, 
 And her, who, still and cold, 
 
 Fills the next grave—the beautifrl and young. 
 
 
 
 THANATOPSIS 
 
 To 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 
 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,—— 
 
 oD 
 
 as 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 25 
 
 Where thy pale form was laid, with many 
 tears, 
 
 Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist 
 
 Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall 
 claim 
 
 Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again, 
 Ha lost Sach human trace, surrendering up 
 hine individual being, shalt thou go 
 
 n 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 
 
 1} oak 
 
 Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy 
 } mould, 
 
 ~ Yet not to thine eternal resting-place 
 
 / 
 
 — 
 
 Ve te 
 gpeeen aa 
 
 7 
 
 | 
 
 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, 
 
 Allin one mighty sepulchre.—The hills 
 
 Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun,—the vales 
 
 Stretching in pensive quietness between; 
 
 The venerable woods—rivers that move 
 
 In majesty, and the complaining brooks 
 
 That make the meadows green; and, poured 
 round all, 
 
 Old ocean’s gray and melancholy waste,— 
 
 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, 
 
26 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 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 Oregan, and hears no sound, 
 
 Save his own dashings—yet—the dead are 
 tnere- 
 
 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 
 
 Unheeded by 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 
 
 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 
 
 {n the full strength of years, matron, and maid, 
 
 And the sweet babe, and the gray-headed 
 man,— 
 
 Shall one by one be gathered 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 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 27 
 
 | His chamber in the silent halls of death, 
 
 _ Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, 
 
 ' Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and 
 soothed 
 
 By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, 
 
 Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
 
 About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. 
 
 
 
 THE LAPSE OF TIME 
 
 Lament who will, in fruitless tears, 
 
 The speed with which our moments fly; 
 I sigh not over vanished years, 
 
 But watch the years that hasten by. 
 
 Look, how they come,—a mingled crowd 
 Of bright and dark, but rapid days; 
 Beneath them, like a summer cloud, 
 The wide world changes as I gaze, 
 
 What! grieve that time has brought so soon 
 The sober age of manhood on? 
 
 As idly might I weep, at noon, 
 To see the blush of morning gone. 
 
 Could I give up the hopes that glow — 
 In prospect, like Elysian isles; 
 
 And let the charming future go, 
 With all her promises and smiles? 
 
 The future !—cruel were the power 
 
 Whose doom would tear thee from my heart, 
 ‘Thou sweetener of the present hour! 
 
 We cannot—no—we will not part. 
 
28 BRYAN. S POEMS 
 
 Oh, leave me, still, the rapid flight 
 That makes the changing seasons gay, 
 The grateful speed that brings the night, 
 The swift and glad return of day; 
 
 The months that touch, with added grace, 
 This little prattler at my knee, 
 
 In whose arch eye and speaking face 
 New meaning every hour I see; 
 
 The years, that o’er each sister land 
 Shall lift the country of my birth 
 
 And nurse her strength, till she shall stand 
 The pride and pattern of the earth; 
 
 Till younger commonwealths, for aid, 
 Shall cling about her ample robe, 
 
 And from her frown shall shrink afraid 
 The crowned oppressors of the globe. 
 
 True—time will seam and blanch my brow— 
 Well—TI shall sit with aged men, 
 
 And my good glass will tell me how 
 A grizzly beard becomes me then. 
 
 And should no foul dishonor lie 
 Upon my head, when I am gray, 
 Love yet shall watch my fading eye, 
 
 And smooth the path of my decay. 
 
 Then, haste thee, Time—’tis kindness all 
 That speeds thy winged feet so fast: 
 Thy pleasures stay not till they pall, 
 And all thy pains are quickly past. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 29 
 
 Thou fliest and bear’st away our woes, 
 And as thy shadowy train depart, 
 The memory of sorrow grows 
 A lighter burden on the heart. 
 
 —_———__—_—— 
 
 TO THE EVENING WIND 
 
 Spirit that breathest through my lattice, thou 
 That cool’st the twilight of the sultry day, 
 
 Gratefully flows thy freshness round my brow; 
 Thou hast been out upon the deep at play. 
 
 Riding all day the wild blue waves till now, 
 Roughening their crests, and scattering high 
 
 their spray, 
 And swelling the white sail. I welcome thee 
 To the scorched land, thou wanderer of the sea! 
 
 Nor I alone—a thousand bosoms round 
 Inhale thee in the fulness of delight; 
 
 And languid forms rise up, and pulses bound 
 Livelier, at coming of the wind of night; 
 And, languishing to hear thy grateful sound, 
 
 Lies the vast inland stretched beyond the 
 sight. 
 Go forth into the gathering shade; go forth, 
 God’s blessing breathed upon the fainting 
 earth! 
 
 Go, rock the little wood-bird in his nest, 
 Curl the still waters, bright with stars, and 
 rouse 
 The wide old wood from his majestic rest, 
 Summoning from the innumerable boughs 
 
30 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 The strange, deep harmonies that haunt his 
 breast: 
 Pleasant shall be thy way where meekly 
 bows 
 The shutting flower, and darkling waters pass, 
 And ’twixt the o’ershadowing branches and 
 the grass. 
 
 The faint old man shall lean his silver head 
 To feel thee; thou shalt kiss the child asleep, 
 
 And dry the moistened curls that overspread 
 His temples, while his breathing grows 
 
 more deep; 
 
 And they who stand about the sick man’s bed, 
 Shall joy to listen to thy distant sweep, 
 
 And softly part his curtains to allow 
 
 Thy visit, grateful to his burning brow. 
 
 Go—but the circle of eternal change, 
 Which is the life of nature, shall restore, 
 With sounds and scents from all thy mighty 
 range, 
 Thee to thy birthplace of the deep once 
 more; 
 Sweet odors in the sea-air, sweet and strange, 
 Shall tell the home-sick mariner of the shore; 
 And, listening to thy murmur, he shall deem 
 He hears the rustling leaf and running stream 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 31 
 
 FOREST HYMN 
 
 The groves were God’s first temples. Ere 
 
 man learned 
 
 To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave, 
 
 And spread the roof above them,—ere he 
 framed 
 
 The lofty vault, to gather and roll back 
 
 The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood, 
 
 Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down 
 
 And offered to the Mightiest, solemn thanks 
 
 And supplication. For his simple heart 
 
 Might not resist the sacred influences, 
 
 Which, from the stilly twilight of the place, 
 
 And from the gray old trunks that high in 
 
 eo heaven 
 Mingled their mossy boughs, and from the 
 sound 
 
 Of the invisible breath that swayed at once 
 
 All their green tops, stole over him, and bowed 
 
 His spirit with the thought of boundless power 
 
 And inaccessible majesty. Ah, why | 
 
 Should we, in the world’s riper years, neglect 
 
 God’s ancient sanctuaries, and adore 
 
 Only among the crowd, and under roofs 
 
 That our frail hands have raised? Let me, at 
 least, 
 
 Here, in the shadow of this aged wood, 
 
 Offer one hymn—thrice happy, if it find 
 
 Acceptance in His ear. 
 
3° BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Father, thy hand 
 Hath reared these venerable columns, ‘thou 
 Didst weave.this verdant roof. Thou didst 
 look down 
 Upon the naked earth, and, forthwith, rose 
 All these fair ranks of trees, tT heyeaetay 
 
 sun, 
 
 Budded, and shook their green leaves in thy 
 breeze, 
 
 And shot toward heaven. The century-living 
 crow, 
 
 Whose birth was in their tops, grew old and 
 died 
 
 Among their branches, till, at last, they stood, 
 
 As now they stand, massy, and tail, and dark, 
 
 Fit shrine for humble worshipper to hold 
 
 Communion with his Maker. These dim 
 vaults, 
 
 These winding aisles, of human pomp or pride 
 
 Report not. No fantastic carvings show, 
 
 The boast of our vain race to change the form 
 
 Of thy fair works. But thou art here—thou 
 fill’st 
 
 The solitude. Thou art in the soft winds 
 
 That run along the summit of these trees 
 
 In music;—thou art in the cooler breath, 
 
 That from the inmost darkness of the place, 
 
 Comes, scarcely felt;—the barky trunks, the 
 ground, 
 
 The fresh, moist ground, are all instinct with 
 thee: 
 
 Here is continual worship ;—nature, here, 
 
 In the tranquillity that thou dost love, 
 
 Enjoys thy presence. Noiselessly, around, 
 
Bra AN T'S POEMS 33 
 
 From perch to perch, the solitary bird 
 
 Passes; and yon clear spring, that, ’midst its 
 herbs, 
 
 Wells softly forth and visits the strong roots 
 
 Of half the mighty forest, tells no tale 
 
 Of all the good it does. Thou hast not left 
 
 Thyself without a witness, in these shades, 
 
 Of thy perfections. Grandeur, strength and 
 grace 
 
 Are here to speak of thee. This mighty oak— 
 
 By whose immovable stem I stand and seem 
 
 Almost annihilated—not a prince, 
 
 In all that proud old world beyond the deep, 
 
 E’er wore his crown as loftily as he 
 
 Wears the green coronal of leaves with which 
 
 Thy hand has graced him. Nestled at his root 
 
 Is beauty, such as blooms not in the glare 
 
 Of the broad sun. That delicate forest flower, 
 
 With scented breath, and look so like a smile, 
 
 Seems, as it issues from the shapeless mould, 
 
 An emanation of the indwelling Life, 
 
 A visible token of the upholding Love, 
 
 That are the soul of this wide universe. 
 
 My heart is awed within me, when I think 
 Of the great miracle that still goes on, 
 In silence, round me—the perpetual work 
 Of thy creation, finished, yet renewed 
 Forever. Written on thy works I read 
 The lesson of thy own eternity. 
 Lo! all grow old and die—but see, again, 
 How on the faltering footsteps of decay 
 Youth presses—ever gay and beautiful youth 
 In allits beautiful forms. These lofty trees 
 3 Bryant’s 
 
34 BRYANT’S POEMS | 
 
 Wave not less proudly that their ancestors 
 
 Moulder beneath them. Oh, there is not lost 
 
 One of earth’s charms: upon her bosom yet, 
 
 After the flight of untold centuries, 
 
 The freshness of her far beginning lies 
 
 And yet shall lie. Life mocks the idle hate 
 
 Of his arch enemy Death—yea, seats himself 
 
 Upon the tyrant’s throne—the sepulchre, 
 
 And of the triumphs of his ghastly foe 
 
 Makes his own nourishment. For he came 
 forth 
 
 From thine own bosom, and shall have no end. 
 
 There have been holy men who hid them- 
 
 selves 
 
 Deep in the woody wilderness, and gave 
 
 Their lives to thought and prayer, till they 
 outlived 
 
 The generation born with them, nor seemed 
 
 Less aged than the hoary trees and rocks 
 
 Around them ;—and there have been holy men 
 
 Who deemed it were not well to pass life thus. 
 
 But let me often to these solitudes 
 
 Retire, and in thy presence reassure 
 
 My feeble virtue. Here its enemies, 
 
 The passions, at thy plainer footsteps shrink 
 
 And tremble and are still, Oh, God! when 
 thou 
 
 Dost scare the world with tempests, set on fire 
 
 The heavens with falling thunderbolts, or fill, 
 
 With all the waters of the firmament, 
 
 The swift, dark whirlwind that uproots the 
 woods 
 
 And drowns the villages; when, at thy call, 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 35 
 
 Uprises the great deep and throws himself 
 Upon the continent, and overwhelms 
 
 Its cities—who forgets not, at the sight 
 
 Of these tremendous tokens of thy power, 
 His pride, and lays his strifes and follies by? 
 Oh, from these sterner aspects of thy face 
 Spare me and mine, nor let us need the wrath 
 Of the mad, unchained elements to teach 
 Who rules them. Be it ours to meditate 
 
 In these calm shades thy milder majesty, 
 And to the beautiful order of thy works, 
 Learn to conform the order of our lives. 
 
 — 
 
 THE OLD MAN’S FUNERAL 
 
 I saw an aged man upon his bier, 
 His hair was thin and white, and on his brow 
 A record of the cares of many a year ;— 
 Cares that were ended and forgotten now. 
 And there was sadness round, and faces 
 bowed, 
 And women’s tears fell fast, and children 
 wailed aloud. 
 
 Then rose another hoary man and said, 
 In faltering accents, to that weeping train, 
 ‘*‘Why mourn ye that our aged friend is dead? 
 Ye are not sad to see the gathered grain, 
 Nor when the mellow fruits the orchards 
 cast, 
 Nor when the yellow woods shake down the 
 ripened mast. 
 
36 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 ‘*Ye sigh not when the sun, his course fulfilled, 
 His glorious course, rejoicing earth and sky, 
 In the soft evening, when the winds are stilled, 
 Sinks where his islands of refreshment lie, 
 And leaves the smile of his departure, spread 
 O’er the warm-colored heaven and ruddy 
 mountain head. 
 
 ‘*‘Why weep ye then for him, who, having won 
 The bound of man’s appointed years, at last, 
 Life’s blessings all enjoyed, life’s labors done, 
 Serenely to his final rest has passed; 
 While the soft memory of his virtues, yet 
 Lingers like twilight hues, when the bright sun 
 is set. 
 
 ‘‘His youth was innocent; his riper age, 
 Marked with some act of goodness, every day; 
 And watched by eyes that loved him, calm, and 
 sage, 
 Faded his late declining years away. 
 Cheerful he gave his being up, and went 
 To share the holy rest that waits a life well 
 spent. 
 
 ‘‘That life was happy; every day he gave 
 Thanks for the fair existence that was his; 
 For a sick fancy made him not her slave, 
 To mock him with her phantom miseries. 
 No chronic tortures racked his aged limb, 
 For luxury and sloth had nourished none for 
 him. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 37 
 
 *‘And I am glad that he has lived thus long, 
 And glad that he has gone to his reward; 
 Nor deem that kindly nature did him Wiotes 
 
 Softly to disengage the vital cord. 
 When his weak hand grew palsied, ard his eye 
 Dark with the mists of age, it was his time to 
 ie.c: 
 
 THE PRAIRIES 
 
 These are the Gardens of the Desert, these 
 The unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful, 
 For which the speech of England has no name— 
 The Prairies. I behold them for the first, 
 And my heart swells, while the dilated sight 
 Takes in the encircling vastness. Lo! they 
 
 stretch 
 In airy undulations, far away, 
 As if the ocean, in his gentlest swell, 
 Stood still, with all his rounded billows fixed, 
 And motionless forever.—Motionless?— 
 No—they are all unchained again. Theclouds 
 Sweep over with their shadows, and, beneath, 
 The surface rolls and fluctuates to the eye; 
 Dark hollows seem to glide along and chase 
 The sunny ridges. Breezes of the South! 
 Who toss the golden and the flame-like flowers, 
 And pass the prairie-hawk that, poised on high, 
 Flaps his broad wings, yet moves not—ye have 
 played 
 Among the palms of Mexico and vines 
 Of Texas, and have crisped the limpid brooks 
 That from the fountains of Sonora glide 
 Into the calm Pacific—have ye fanned 
 
38 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 A nobler or a lovelier scene than this? 
 
 Man hath no part in all this glorious work: 
 
 The hand that built the firmament hath heaved 
 
 And smoothed these verdant swells, and sown 
 their slopes 
 
 With herbage, planted them with island groves, 
 
 And hedged them round with forests. Fitting 
 floor 
 
 For this magnificent temple of the sky— 
 
 With flowers whose glory and whose multitude 
 
 Rival the constellations! The great heavens 
 
 Seem to stoop down upon the scene in love,— 
 
 A nearer vault, and of a tenderer blue, 
 
 Than that which bends above the eastern hills. 
 
 As o’er the verdant waste I guide my steed, 
 
 Among the high rank grass that sweeps his 
 sides, 
 
 The hollow beating of his footsteps seems 
 
 A sacrilegious sound. I think of those 
 
 Upon whose rest he tramples. Are they here— 
 
 The dead of other days?—and did the dust 
 
 Of these fair solitudes once stir with life 
 
 And burn with passion? Let the mighty 
 mounds | 
 
 That overlook the rivers, or that rise 
 
 In the dim forest crowded with old oaks, 
 
 Answer. A race that long has passed away, 
 
 Built them;—a disciplined and populous race 
 
 Heaped, with long toil, the earth, while yet the 
 Greek 
 
 Was hewing the Pentelicus to forms 
 
 Of symmetry, and rearing on its rock 
 
 The glittering Parthenon. These ample fields 
 
SRYANTS POEMS 39 
 
 Nourished their harvests, here their herds were 
 four 
 
 When haply by their stalls the bison lowed, 
 
 And bowed his maned shoulder to the yoke. 
 
 All day this desert murmured with their toils, 
 
 Till twilight blushed and lovers walked, and 
 wooed 
 
 In a forgotten language, and old tunes, . 
 
 From instruments of unremembered form, 
 
 Gave the soft winds a voice. The red man 
 came— 
 
 The roaming hunter tribes, warlike and fierce, 
 
 And the mound-builders vanished from the 
 earth. 
 
 The solitude of centuries untold 
 
 Has settled where they dwelt. The prairie wolf 
 
 Hunts in their meadows, and his fresh-dug den 
 
 Yawns by my path. The gopher mines the 
 
 ground 
 
 Where stood their swarming cities. All is 
 gone— 
 
 All—save the piles of earth that hold their 
 bones— 
 
 The platforms where they worshipped unknown 
 gods—: 
 
 The barriers which they builded from the soil 
 
 To keep the foe at bay—till o’er the walls 
 
 The wild beleaguers broke, and, one by one, 
 
 The strongholds of the plain were forced and 
 ' heaped 
 
 With corpses. The brown vultures of the wood 
 
 Flocked to those vast uncovered sepulchres, 
 
 And sat, unscared and silent, at their feast. 
 
 Haply some solitary fugitive, 
 
‘£0 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Lurking in marsh and forest, till the sense 
 
 Of desolation and of fear became 
 
 Bitterer than death, yielded himself to die. 
 
 Man’s better nature triumphed. Kindly words 
 
 Welcomed and soothed him; the rude con- 
 querors 
 
 Seated the captive with their chiefs; he chose 
 
 A bride among their maidens, and at length 
 
 Seemed to forget,—yet ne’er forgot,—the wife 
 
 Of his first love, and her sweet little ones 
 
 Butchered amid their shrieks, with all his race. 
 
 Thus change the forms of being, ‘Thus arise 
 
 Races of living things, glorious in strength, 
 
 And perish, as the quickening breath of God 
 
 Fillsthem, oris withdrawn. The red man too— 
 
 Has left the blooming wilds he ranged so long, 
 
 And, near to the Rocky Mountains, sought 
 
 A wider hunting-ground. The beaver builds 
 
 No longer by these streams, but far away, 
 
 On waters whose blue surface ne’er gave back 
 
 The white man’s face—among Muissouri’s 
 springs, 
 
 And pools whose issues swell the Oregan, 
 
 He rears his little Venice.’ In these vaiaaas 
 
 The bison feeds no more. Twice twenty 
 leagues » 
 
 Beyond remotest smoke of hunter’s camp, 
 
 Roams the majestic brute, in herds that shake 
 
 The earth with thundering steps—yet here I 
 meet . 
 
 His ancient footprints stamped beside the pool. 
 
 Still this great solitude is quick with life. 
 Myriads of insects, gaudy as the flowers 
 They flutter over, gentle quadrupeds, 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 41 
 
 And birds, that scarce have learned the fear of 
 man, 
 
 Are here, and sliding reptiles of the ground, 
 
 Startlingly beautiful. The graceful deer 
 
 Bounds to the wood at my approach. The bee, 
 
 A more adventurous colonist than man, 
 
 With whom he came across the eastern deep, 
 
 Fills the savannas with his murmurings, 
 
 And hides his sweets, as in the golden age, 
 
 Within the hollow oak. [I listen long 
 
 To his domestic hum, and think I hear 
 
 The sound of that advancing multitude 
 
 Which soon shall fill these deserts. From the 
 ground 
 
 Comes up the laugh of children, the soft voice 
 
 Of maidens, and the sweet and solemn hymn 
 
 Of Sabbath worshippers. The low of herds 
 
 Blends with the rustling of the heavy grain 
 
 Over the dark-brown furrows. All at once 
 
 A fresher wind sweeps by, and breaks my 
 dream, 
 
 And I am in the wilderness alone. 
 
 THE KNIGHT’S EPITAPH 
 
 This is the church which Pisa, great and free, 
 Reared to St. Catherine. How the time-stained 
 walls, 
 That earthquakes shook not from their poise, 
 appear 
 To shiver.in the deep and voluble tones 
 Rolled from the organ! Underneath my feet 
 There lies the lid of a sepulchral vault. 
 
42 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 The image of an armed knight is graven 
 
 Upon it, clad in perfect panoply— 
 
 Cuishes, and greaves, and cuirass, with barred 
 helm, 
 
 Gauntleted hand, and sword, and blazcned 
 shield. 
 
 Around, in Gothic characters, worn dim 
 
 By feet of worshippers, are traced his name, 
 
 And birth, and death, and words of eulogy. 
 
 Why should I pore uponthem? ‘This old tomb, 
 
 This effigy, the strange disused form 
 
 Of this inscription, eloquently show 
 
 His history. Let me clothe in fitting words 
 
 The thoughts they breathe, and frame his 
 epitaph. 
 
 **He whose forgotten dust for centuries 
 Has lain beneath this stone, was one in whom 
 Adventure, and endurance, and emprise 
 Exalted the mind’s faculties and strung 
 The body’s sinews. Brave he was in fight, 
 Courteous in banquet, scornful of repose, 
 And bountiful, and cruel, and devout, 
 And quick to draw the sword in private feud. 
 He pushed his quarrels to the death, yet prayed 
 The saints as fervently on bended knees 
 As ever shaven cenobite. He loved 
 As fiercely ashe fought. He would have borne 
 The maid that pleased him from her bower by 
 
 night, 
 
 To his hill-castle, as the eagle bears 
 His victim from the fold, and rolled the rocks 
 On his pursuers. He aspired to see 
 His native Pisa queen and arbitress 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 49 
 
 Of cities; earnestly for her he raised 
 
 His voice in council, and affronted death 
 
 In battle-field, and climbed the galley’s deck, 
 And brought the captured flag of Genoa back, 
 Or piled upon the Arno’s crowded quay 
 
 The glittering spoils of the tamed Saracen. 
 He was not born to brook the stranger’s yoke, 
 But would have joined the exiles, that withdrew 
 For ever, when the Florentine broke in 
 
 The gates of Pisa, and bore off the bolts 
 
 For trophies—but he died before that day. 
 
 ‘“He lived, the impersonation of an age 
 That never shall return. His soul of fire 
 Was kindled by the breath of the rude time 
 He lived in.. Now a gentler race succeeds, 
 Shuddering at blood; the effeminate cavalier, 
 Turning from the reproaches of the past, 
 
 And from the hopeless future, gives to ease, 
 And love and music, his inglorious life.’’ 
 
 SEVENTY-SIX 
 
 What heroes from the woodland sprung, 
 When, through the fresh awakened land, 
 The thrilling cry of freedom rung, 
 And to the work of warfare strung 
 The yoeman’s iron hand! 
 
 Hills flung the cry to hills around, 
 
 And ocean-mart replied to mart, 
 And streams, whose springs were yet unfound, 
 Pealed far away the startling sound 
 
 Into the forest’s heart. 
 
44 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Then marched the brave from rocky steep, 
 From mountain river swift and cold; 
 
 The borders of the stormy deep, 
 
 The vales where gathered waters sleep, 
 sent up the strong and bold,— 
 
 As if the very earth again 
 
 Grew quick with God’s creating breath 
 And, from the sods of grove and glen, 
 Rose ranks of lion-hearted men 
 
 To battle to the death. 
 
 The wife, whose babe first smiled that day, 
 The fair fond bride of yestereve, 
 
 And aged sire and matron. gray, 
 
 Saw the loved warriors haste away, 
 And deemed it sin to grieve. 
 
 Already had the strife begun; 
 Already blood on Concord’s plain 
 
 Along the springing grass had run, 
 
 And blood had flowed at Lexington, 
 Like brooks of April rain. 
 
 That death-stain on the vernal sward 
 Hallowed to freedom all the shore; 
 In fragments fell the yoke abhorred— 
 The footstep of a foreign lord 
 Profaned the soil no more. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 45 
 
 THE HUNTER OF THE PRAIRIES 
 Ay, this is freedom!—these pure skies 
 
 Were never stained with village smoke: 
 The fragrant wind, that through them flies, 
 
 Is breathed from wastes by plough unbroke. 
 Here, with my rifle and my steed, 
 
 And her who left the world for me, 
 I plant me, where the red deer feed 
 
 In the green desert—and am free. 
 
 For here the fair savannas know 
 No barriers in the bloomy grass; 
 Wherever breeze of heaven may blow, 
 Or beam of heaven may glance, I pass. 
 In pastures, measureless as air, 
 The bison is my noble game; 
 The bounding elk, whose antlers tear 
 The branches, falls-before my aim. 
 
 Mine are the river-fowl that scream 
 From the long stripe of waving sedge; 
 The bear, that marks my weapon’s gleam, 
 Hides vainly in the forest’s edge; 
 ‘ In vain the she-wolf stands at bay; 
 The brinded catamount, that lies 
 High in the boughs to watch his prey, 
 Even in the act of springing, dies. 
 
46 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 With what free growth the elm and plane 
 Fling their huge arms across my way, 
 Gray, old, and cumbered with a train 
 Of vines, as huge, and old, and gray! 
 Free stray the lucid streams, and find 
 No taint in these fresh lawns and shades; 
 Free spring the flSwers that scent the wind 
 Where never scythe has swept the glades. 
 
 Alone the Fire, when frostwinds sere 
 
 The heavy herbage of the ground, 
 G-tners his annual harvest here, 
 
 With roaring like the battle’s sound, 
 And hurrying flames that sweep the plain, 
 
 And smoke-streams gushing up the sky; 
 IT meet the flames with flames again, 
 
 And at my door they cower and die. 
 
 Here, from dim woods, the aged past 
 Speaks solemnly; and I behold 
 
 The boundless future in the vast 
 And lonely river, seaward rolled. 
 
 Who feeds its founts with rain and dew? 
 Who moves, I ask, its gliding mass, 
 
 And trains the bordering vines, whose blue 
 Bright clusters tempt me as I pass? 
 
 Broad are these streams—my steed obeys, 
 Plunges, and bears me through the tide. 
 Wide are these woods—I thread the maze 
 Of giant stems, nor ask a guide. 
 IT hunt, till day’s last glimmer dies 
 O’er woody vale and grassy height; 
 And kind the voice and glad the eyes, 
 That welcome my return at night. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 A SONG OF PITCAIRN’S ISLAND 
 
 Come, take our boy, and we will go 
 Before our cabin door; 
 
 The winds shall bring us, as they blow, 
 The murmurs of the shore; 
 
 And we will kiss his young blue eyes, 
 
 And [ will sing him, as he lies, 
 songs that were made of yore; 
 
 I’ll sing, in his delighted ear, 
 
 The island lays thou lov’st to hear. 
 
 And thou, while stammering I repeat, 
 Thy country’s tongue shalt teach; 
 
 ’Tis not so soft, but far more sweet, 
 Than my own native speech: 
 
 For thou no other tongue didst know, 
 
 When, scarcely twenty moons ago, 
 Upon Tahete’s beach, 
 
 Thou cam’st to woo me to be thine, 
 
 With many a speaking look and sign. 
 
 I knew thy meaning-—thou didst praise 
 My eyes, my locks of jet; 
 
 Ah! well for me they won thy gaze, — 
 But thine were fairer yet! 
 
 I’m glad to see my infant wear 
 
 Thy soft blue eyes and sunny hair, 
 And when my sight is met 
 
 By his white brow and blooming cheek, 
 
 I feel a joy I cannot speak. 
 
 47 
 
45 SRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Come talk of Europe’s maids with me, 
 Whose necks and cheeks, they tell, 
 
 Outshine the beauty of the sea, 
 White foam and crimson shell. 
 
 I'll shape like theirs my simple dress, 
 
 And bind like them each jetty tress, 
 A sight to please thee well: 
 
 And for my dusky brow will braid 
 
 A bonnet like an English maid. 
 
 Come, for the soft low sunlight calls, 
 We lose the pleasant hours; 
 
 ’Tis lovelier than these cottage walls, — 
 That seat among the flowers. 
 
 And I will learn of thee a prayer, 
 
 To Him, who gave a home so fair, 
 A lot so blessed as ours— 
 
 The God who made, for thee and me, 
 
 This sweet lone isle amid the sea. 
 
 RIZPAH 
 
 And he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeon- 
 ites, and they hanged them in the hill before the Lord; 
 and they fell all seven together, and were put to death 
 in the days of the harvest, in the first days, in the 
 beginniny of barley-harvest. 
 
 And Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, took sackcloth, 
 and spread it for her upon the rock, from the beginning 
 of harvest until the water dropped upon them out of 
 heaven, and suffered neither the birds of the air to 
 rest upon them by day, nor the beasts of the field by 
 night.—2 Sam. xxi. 10. 
 
 Hear what the desolate Rizpah said, 
 
 As on Gibeah’s rocks she watched the dead. 
 The sons of Michal before her lay, 
 
ya 
 le) 
 
 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 And her own fair children dearer than they. 
 
 By a death of shame they all had died, 
 
 And were stretched on the bare rock, side by 
 side. 
 
 And Rizpah, once the loveliest of all 
 
 That bloomed and smiled in the court of Saul, 
 
 All wasted with watching and famine now, 
 
 And scorched by the sun her haggard brow, 
 
 Sat, mournfully guarding their corpses there, 
 
 And murmured a strange and solemn air; 
 
 The low, heart-broken, and wailing strain 
 
 Of a mother that mourns her children slain. 
 
 **T have made the crags my home, and spread 
 
 On their desert backs my sackcloth bed; 
 
 I have eaten the bitter herb of the rocks, 
 
 And drunk the midnight dew in my locks; 
 
 I have wept till I could not weep, and the 
 pain 
 
 Of my burning eyeballs went to my brain. , 
 
 Seven blackened corpses before me lie, 
 
 In the blaze of the sun and the winds of the 
 sky. 
 
 I have watched them through the burning 
 day 
 
 And driven the vulture and raven away; 
 
 And the cormorant wheeled in circles round, 
 
 Yet feared to alight on the guarded ground. 
 
 And, when the shadows of twilight came, 
 
 I have seen the hyena’s eyes of flame, 
 
 And heard at my side his stealthy tread, 
 
 But aye at my shout the savage fled: 
 
 And I threw the lighted brand, to fright 
 
 The jackal and wolf that yelled in the night. 
 
 4 Bryant’s 
 
50 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 ‘‘Ye were foully murdered, my hapless sons, 
 By the hands of wicked and cruel ones; 
 Ye fell, in your fresh and blooming prime, 
 Ali innocent, for your father’s crime. 
 He sinned—but he paid the price of his guilt 
 When his blood by a nameless hand was spilt; 
 When he strove with the heathen host in vain, 
 And fell with the flower of his people slain, 
 And the sceptre his children’s hands should sway 
 From his injured lineage passed away. 
 
 ‘*But I hoped that the cottage roof would be 
 A safe retreat for my sons and me; 
 And that while they ripened to manhood fast, 
 They should wean my thoughts from the woes 
 of the past. 
 And my bosom swelled with a mother’s pride, 
 As they stood in their beauty and strength by 
 my side, 
 Tall like their sire, with the princely grace 
 Of his stately form, and the bloom of his face. 
 
 ‘‘Oh, what an hour for a mother’s heart, 
 When the pitiless ruffians tore us apart! 
 When I clasped their knees and wept and 
 
 prayed, 
 And struggled and shrieked to Heaven for aid, 
 And clung to my sons with desperate strength, 
 Till the murderers loosed my hold at length, 
 And bore me breathless and faint aside, 
 In their iron arms, while my children died. 
 They died—and the mother that gave them 
 birth 
 Is forbid to cover their bones with earth. 
 
BermrAnN lo POEMS 51 
 
 ‘“The barley-harvest was nodding white, 
 When my children died on the rocky height, 
 And the reapers were singing on hill and plain, 
 When I came to my task of sorrow and pain. 
 But now the season of rain is nigh, 
 
 The sun is dim in the thickening sky, 
 
 And the clouds in the sullen darkness rest 
 
 Where he hides his light at the doors of the 
 west. 
 
 I hear the howl of the wind that brings 
 
 The long drear storm on its heavy wings; 
 
 But the howling wind, and the driving rain 
 
 Will beat on my houseless head in vain: 
 
 I shall stay, from my murdered sons to scare 
 
 The beasts of the desert and fowls of air.”’ 
 
 Pore ARCTIC: LOVER 
 
 Gone is the long, long winter night, 
 Look, my beloved one! 
 
 How glorious, through his depths of light, 
 Rolls the majestic sun. 
 
 The willows, waked from winter’s death, 
 
 Give out a fragrance like thy breath— 
 The summer is begun! 
 
 Ay, ’tis the long bright summer day: 
 Hark, to that mighty crash! 
 
 The loosened ice-ridge breaks away— 
 The smitten waters flash. 
 
 Seaward the glittering mountain rides, 
 
 While, down its green translucent sides, 
 The foamy torrents dash. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 See, love, my boat is moored for thee, 
 
 By ocean’s weedy floor— 
 
 The petrel does not skim the sea 
 More swiftly than my oar. 
 
 We'll go where, on the rocky isles, 
 
 Her eggs the screaming sea-fowl piles 
 Beside the pebbly shore. 
 
 Or, bide thou where the poppy blows, 
 With wind-flowers frail and fair, 
 While I, upon his isle of snows, 
 Seek and defy the bear. 
 Fierce though he be, and huge of frame, 
 This arm his savage strength shall tame, 
 And drag him from his lair. 
 
 When crimson sky and flamy cloud 
 Bespeak the summer o’er, 
 
 And the dead valleys wear a shroud 
 Of snows that melt no more, 
 
 I’ll build of ice thy winter home, 
 
 With glistening walls and glassy dome, 
 And spread with skins the floor. 
 
 The white fox by the couch shall play; 
 And, from the frozen skies, 
 
 The meteors of a mimic day 
 Shall flash upon thine eyes. 
 
 And I—for such thy vow—meanwhile 
 
 Shall hear thy voice and see thy smile, 
 Till that long midnight flies. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 ROMERO 
 
 When freedom, from the land of Spain, 
 By Spain’s degenerate sons was driven, 
 Who gave their willing limbs again 
 To wear the chain so lately riven; 
 Romero broke the sword ke wore— 
 **Go, faithful brand,’’ the warrior said, 
 ‘Go, undishonored, never more 
 The blood of man shall make thee red; 
 I grieve for that already shed; 
 And I am sick at heart to know, 
 That faithful friend and noble foe 
 Have only bled to. make more strong 
 The yoke that Spain has worn so long. 
 Wear it who will, in abject fear— 
 I wear it not who have been free; 
 The perjured Ferdinand shall hear 
 No oath of loyalty from me.’’ 
 Then, hunted by the hounds of power, 
 Romero chose a safe retreat, 
 Where bleak Nevada’s summits tower 
 Above the beauty at their feet. 
 There once, when on his cabin lay 
 The crimson light of setting day, 
 When even on the mountain’s breast 
 The chainless winds were all at rest, 
 And he could hear the river’s flow 
 From the calm paradise below; 
 Warmed with his former fires again, 
 He framed this rude but solemn strain. 
 
 53 
 
54 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 ‘Here will 1 make my home—for here at 
 
 least I see, 
 
 Upon this wild Sierra’s side, the steps of 
 Liberty; 
 
 Where the locust chirps unscared beneath the 
 unpruned lime, 
 
 And the merry bee doth hide from man the 
 spoil of the mountain thyme; 
 
 Where the pure winds come and go, and the 
 wild vine strays at will, 
 
 An outcast from the haunts of men, she dwells 
 with Nature still. 
 
 ‘‘T see the valleys, Spain! where thy mighty 
 
 rivers run, 
 
 And the hills that lift thy harvests and vine- 
 yards to the sun, 
 
 And the flocks that drink thy brooks and 
 sprinkle all the green, 
 
 Where lie thy plains, with sheep-walks seamed, 
 and olive shades between: 
 
 I see thy fig-trees bask, with the fair pome- 
 granate near, 
 
 And the fragrance of thy lemon-groves can 
 almost reach me here, 
 
 ‘*Fair—fair—but fallen Spain! ’tis with a 
 swelling heart, 
 That I think on all thou might’st have been, 
 and look at what thou art; 
 But the strife is over now—and all the good 
 and brave, | 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 50 
 
 That would have raised thee up, are gone, to 
 exile or the grave. 
 
 Thy fleeces are for monks, thy grapes for the 
 convent feast, 
 
 And the wealth of all thy harvest-fields for the 
 pampered lord and priest. 
 
 **But } shall see the day—it will come before 
 
 I die— 
 
 I shall see it in my silver hairs, and with an 
 age-dimmed eye ;— 
 
 When the spirit of the land to liberty shall 
 bound, 
 
 As yonder fountain leaps away from the dark. 
 ness of the ground; 
 
 And, to my mountain cell, the voices of the free 
 
 Shall rise, as from the beaten shore the thun- 
 ders of the sea.’”’ 
 
 MONUMENT MOUNTAIN 
 
 Thou who wouldst see the lovely and the wild 
 Mingled in harmony on Nature’s face, 
 Ascend our rocky mountains. Let thy foot 
 Fail not with weariness, for on their tops 
 The beauty and the majesty of earth, 
 Spread wide beneath, shall make thee to for- 
 get 
 The steep andtoilsome way. There, as thou 
 
 stand’st, 
 
 The haunts of men below thee, and around 
 The mountain summits, thy expanding heart 
 
56 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Shall feel a kindred with that loftier world 
 
 To which thou art translated, and partake 
 
 The enlargement of thy vision. Thou shalt 
 look 
 
 Upon the green and rolling forest tops, 
 
 And down into the secrets of the glens, 
 
 And streams, that with their bordering thickets 
 strive 
 
 To hide their windings. ‘Thou shalt gaze, at 
 once, 
 
 Here on white villages, and tilth, and herds, 
 
 And swarming roads, and there on solitudes 
 
 That only hear the torrent, and the wind, 
 
 Andeagle’s shriek. There is a precipice 
 
 That seems a fragment of some mighty wall, 
 
 Built by the hand that fashioned the old world, 
 
 To separate its nations, and thrown down 
 
 When the flood drowned them. To the north 
 a path 
 
 Conducts you up the narrow battlement. 
 
 Steep is the western side, shaggy and wild 
 
 With mossy trees, and pinnacles of flint, 
 
 And many a hanging crag. But, to the east, 
 
 Sheer to the vale go down the bare old cliffs, 
 
 Huge pillars, that in middle heaven upbear 
 
 Their weather-beaten capitals, here dark 
 
 With the thick moss cf centuries, and there 
 
 Of chalky whiteness where the thunderbolt 
 
 Has splintered them. It is a fearful thing 
 
 To stand upon the beetling verge, and see 
 
 Where storm and lightning, from that huge 
 wall, 
 
 Have tumbled down vast blocks, and at the 
 base 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 57 
 
 Dashed them in fragments, and to lay thine ear 
 
 Over the dizzy depth, and hear the sound 
 
 Of winds, that struggle with the woods below, 
 
 Come up like ocean murmurs. But the scene 
 
 Is lovely round; a beautiful river there 
 
 Wanders amid the fresh and fertile meads, 
 
 The paradise he made unto himself, 
 
 Mining the soil for ages. On each side 
 
 The fields swell upward to the hills; beyond, 
 
 Above the hills, in the blue distance, rise 
 
 The mighty columns with which earth props 
 heaven. 
 
 There is a tale about these gray old rocks, 
 A sad tradition of unhappy love 
 And sorrows borne and ended, long ago, 
 When over these fair vales the savage sought 
 His gameinthe thick woods. There wasa maid, 
 The fairest of the Indian maids, bright-eyed, 
 With wealth of raven tresses, a light form, 
 And a gay heart. About her cabin door 
 The wide old woods resounded with her song 
 And fairy laughter all the summer day. 
 She loved her cousin; such a love was deemed, 
 By the morality of those stern tribes, 
 Incestuous, and she struggled hard and long 
 Against her love, and reasoned with her heart, 
 As simple Indian maiden might. In vain. 
 Then her eye lost its lustre, and her step 
 Its lightness, and the gray old men that passed 
 Her dwelling, wondered that they heard no 
 more 
 The accustomed song and laugh of her, whose 
 looks 
 
58 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Were like the cheerful smile of Spring, they 
 said, 
 
 Upon the Winter of theirage. She went 
 
 To weep where no eye saw, and was not found 
 
 When allthe merry girls were met to dance, 
 
 And all the hunters of the tribe were out; 
 
 Nor when they gathered from the rustling 
 husk 
 
 The shining ear; nor when, by the river’s 
 side, 
 
 They pulled the grape, and startled the wild 
 shades | 
 
 With sounds of mirth. The keen-eyed Indian 
 dames 
 
 Would whisper to each other, as they saw 
 
 Her wasting form, and say, she girl will die. 
 
 One day into the bosom of a friend, 
 
 A playmate of her young and innocent years, 
 
 She poured her griefs. ‘*Thou know’st, and 
 thou alone,’’ 
 
 She said, ‘‘for I have told thee, all my love, 
 
 And guilt, and sorrow. Iam sick of life. 
 
 All night I weep in darkness, and the morn 
 
 Glares on me, as upon a thing accursed, 
 
 That has no business on the earth. I hate 
 
 The pastimes and the pleasant toils that once 
 
 I loved; the cheerful voices of my friends 
 
 Have an unnatural horror in mine ear. 
 
 In dreams my mother, from the land of souls, 
 
 Calls me and chides me. All that look on 
 me 
 
 Do seem to know my shame; I cannot bear 
 
 Their eyes; I cannot from my heart root out 
 
 The love that wrings it so, and I must die.”’ 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 59 
 
 It was a summer morning, and they went 
 To this old precipice. About the cliffs 
 Lay garlands, ears of maize, and shaggy skins 
 Of wolf and bear, the offerings.of the tribe 
 Here made tothe Great Spirit, for they deemed, 
 Like worshippers of the elder time, that God 
 Doth walk on the high places and affect 
 The earth-o’erlooking mountains. She had on 
 The ornaments with which her father loved 
 To deck the beauty of his bright-eyed girl, 
 And bade her wear when stranger warriors 
 came 
 To be his guests. Here the friends sat them 
 down, 
 And sang, all day, old songs of love and death, 
 And decked the poor wan victim’s hair with 
 flowers, 
 And prayed that safe and swift might be her way 
 To the calm world of sunshine, where no grief 
 Makes the heart heavy and the eyelids red. 
 Beautiful lay the region of her tribe 
 Below her— waters resting in the embrace 
 Of the wide forest, and maize-planted glades 
 Opening amid the leafy wilderness. 
 She gazed upon it long, and at the sight 
 Of her own village peeping through the trees, 
 cand her own dwelling, and the cabin roof 
 Of him she loved with an unlawful love, 
 And came to die for, a warm gush of tears 
 Ran from her eyes. But when the sun grew 
 low 
 And the hill shadows long, she threw herself 
 From the steep rock and perished. There was 
 scooped, 
 
60 BRYANT’S POEMS — 
 
 Upon the mountain’s southern slope, a grave; 
 
 And there they laid her, in the very garb 
 
 With which the maiden decked herself for 
 death 
 
 With the same withering wild flowers in her 
 hair. 
 
 And o’er the mould that covered her, the tribe 
 
 Built up a simple monument, iu cone 
 
 Of small loose stones. Thenceforward, all who 
 passed, 
 
 Hunter, and dame, and virgin, laid a stone 
 
 In silence on the pile. It stands there yet. 
 
 And Indians from the distant West, who come 
 
 To visit where their fathers’ bones are laid, 
 
 Yet tell the sorrowful tale, and to this day 
 
 The mountain where the hapless maiden 
 died 
 
 Is called the Mountain of the Monument. 
 
 SONG OF MARION’S MEN 
 
 Our band is few, but true and tried, 
 Our leader frank and bold; 
 
 The British soldier trembles 
 When Marion’s name is told. 
 
 Our fortress is the good greenwood, 
 Our tent the cypress-tree; 
 
 We know the forest round us, 
 As seamen know the sea. 
 
 We know its walls of thorny vines, 
 Its glades of reedy grass, 
 
 Its safe and silent islands 
 Within the dark morass. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 61 
 
 Woe to the English soldiery 
 That little dread us near! 
 
 On them shall light at midnight 
 A strange and sudden fear: 
 
 When waking to their tents on fire 
 They grasp their arms in vain, 
 
 #.nd they who stand to face us 
 Are beat to earth again; 
 
 And they who fly in terror deem 
 
 _Amighty host behind, 
 
 And hear the tramp of thousands 
 Upon the hollow wind. 
 
 Then sweet the hour that brings release 
 _ From danger and from <oil: 
 We talk the battle over, 
 And share the battle’s spoil. 
 The woodland rings with laugh and shout, 
 As if a hunt were up, 
 And woodland flowers are gathered 
 To crown the soldier’s cup. 
 With merry songs we mock the wind 
 That in the pine-top grieves, 
 And slumber long and sweetly, 
 On beds of oaken leaves. 
 
 Well knows the fair and friendly moon 
 The band that Marion leads— 
 
 The glitter of their rifles, 
 
 _ The scampering of their steeds, 
 
 ’Tis life our fiery barbs to guide 
 Across the moonlight plains; 
 
 ’*7 is life to feel the night-wind 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 That lifts their tossing manes. 
 A moment in the British camp— 
 A moment—and away 
 Back to the pathless forest, 
 Before the peep of day. 
 
 Grave men there are by broad Santee, 
 Grave men with hoary hairs, 
 
 Their hearts are all with Marion, 
 For Marion are their prayers. 
 
 And lovely ladies greet our band, 
 With kindliest welcoming, 
 
 With smiles like those of summer, 
 And tears like those of spring. 
 
 For them we wear these trusty arms, 
 And lay them down no more 
 
 Till we have driven the Briton, 
 Forever from our shore. 
 
 THE DISINTERRED WARRIOR 
 
 Gather him to his grave again 
 And solemnly and softly lay, 
 Beneath the verdure of the plain, 
 The warrior’s scattered bones away. 
 Pay the deep reverence, taught of old, 
 The homage of man’s heart to death; 
 Nor dare to trifle with the mould 
 Once hallowed by the Almighty’s breath. 
 
 The soul hath quickened every part— 
 That remnant of a martial brow, 
 
 Those ribs that held the mighty heart, 
 That strong arm—strong no longer now. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 63 
 
 Spare them, each mouldering relic spare, 
 Of God’s own image; let them rest, 
 Till not a trace shall speak of where 
 The awful likeness was impressed 
 
 For he was fresher from the hand 
 
 That formed of earth the human face, 
 And to the elements did stand 
 
 In nearer kindred than our race. 
 In many a flood to madness tossed, 
 
 In many a storm has been his path; 
 He hid him not from heat or frost, 
 
 But met them, and defied their wrath. 
 
 Then they were kind—the forests here, 
 Rivers, and stiller waters paid 
 
 A tribute to the net and spear 
 Of the red ruler of the shade. 
 
 Fruits on the woodland branches lay, 
 Roots in the shaded soil below, 
 
 - The stars looked forth to teach his way, 
 
 The still earth warned him of the foe. 
 
 A noble race! but they are gone, 
 With their old forests wide and deep, 
 And we have built our homes upon 
 Fields where their generations sleep. 
 Their fountains slake our thirst at noon, 
 Upon their fields our harvest waves. 
 Our lovers woo beneath their moon— 
 Ah, let us spare, at least, their graves! 
 
64 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 THE HURRICANE 
 
 Lord of the winds! I feel thee nigh, 
 I know thy breath in the burning sky! 
 And I wait, with a thrill in every vein, 
 For the coming of the hurricane! 
 
 And lo! on the wing of the heavy gales, 
 Through the boundless arch of heaven he sails: 
 Silent, and slow, and terribly strong, 
 
 The mighty shadow is borne along, 
 
 Like the dark eternity to come; 
 
 While the world below, dismayed and dumb, 
 Through the calm of the thick hot atmosphere 
 Looks up at its gloomy folds with fear. 
 
 They darken fast—and the golden blaze 
 Of the sun is quenched in the lurid haze, 
 
 And he sends through the shade a funeral ray— 
 A glare that is neither night nor day, 
 
 A beam that touches, with hues of death, 
 
 The clouds above and the earth beneath. 
 
 To its covert glides the silent bird, 
 
 While the hurricane’s distant voice is heard, 
 Uplifted among the mountains round, 
 
 And the forests hear and answer the sound. 
 
 He is come! he is come! do ye not behold 
 His ainple robes on the wind unrolled? 
 
 Giant of air! we bid thee hail!— 
 How his gray skirts toss in the whirling gale; 
 How his huge and writhing arms are bent, 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 65 
 
 To clasp the zone of the firmament, 
 
 And fold, at length, in their dark embrace, 
 From mountain to mountain the visible space. 
 Darker—still darker! the whirlwinds bear 
 
 The dust of the plains to the middle air: 
 And hark to the crashing, long and loud, 
 Of the chariot of God in the thunder-cloud! 
 You may trace its path by the flashes that start 
 From the rapid wheels where’er they dart, 
 As the fire-bolts leap to the world below, 
 And flood the skies with a lurid glow. 
 What roar is that?—’tis the rain that breaks 
 In torrents away from the airy lakes, 
 Heavily poured on the shuddering ground, 
 And shedding a nameless horror round. 
 Ah! well-known woods, and mountains, and 
 skies, 
 With the very clouds!—ye are lost to my eyes. 
 I seek ye vainly, and see in your place 
 The shadowy tempest that sweeps through 
 space, | 
 A whirling ocean that fills the wall 
 Of the crystal heaven and buries all. 
 And I, cut off from the world, remain 
 Alone with the terrible hurricane. 
 
 “OH FAIREST OF THE RURAL 
 MAIDS”’ 
 
 Oh fairest of the rural maids! 
 Thy birth was in the forest shades; 
 Green boughs, and glimpses of the sky, 
 Were all that met thy infant eye. 
 
 5 Bryant’s 
 
56 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Thy sports, thy wanderings, when a child, 
 Were ever in the sylvan wild; 
 
 And all the beauty of the place, 
 
 Is in thy heart and on thy face. 
 
 The twilight of the trees and rocks 
 Ts in the light shade of thy locks; 
 Thy step is as the wind, that weaves 
 Its playful way among the leaves. 
 
 Thy eyes are springs, in whose serene 
 And silent waters heaven is seen; 
 Their lashes are the herbs that look 
 On their young figures in the brook. 
 
 The forest depths, by foot unpressed, 
 Are not more sinless than thy breast; 
 The holy peace that fills the air 
 Of those calm solitudes is there. 
 
 
 
 INSCRIPTION FOR THE \EN trees 
 TO A WOOD 
 
 Stranger, if thou hast learned a truth which 
 needs 
 No school of long experience, that the world 
 Is full of guilt and misery, and has seen 
 Enough of all its sorrows, crimes, and cares, 
 To tire thee of it, enter this wild wood 
 And view the haunts of Nature. The calm 
 shade 
 Shall bring a kindred calm, and the sweet 
 breeze 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS é7 
 
 That makes the green leaves dance, shall waft 
 a balm 
 
 To thy sick heart. Thou wilt find nothing here 
 
 Of all that pained thee in the haunts of men 
 
 And made thee loathe thy life. The primal curse 
 
 Fell, it is true, upon the unsinning earth, 
 
 Butnotin vengeance. God hath yoked to Guilt 
 
 Her pale tormentor, Misery. Hence these 
 shades 
 
 Are still the abodes of gladness; the thick roof 
 
 Of green and stirring branches is alive 
 
 And musical with birds, that sing and sport 
 
 In wantonness of spirit; while below 
 
 The squirrel, with raised paws and form erect, 
 
 Chirps merrily. Throngs of insects tn the shade 
 
 Try their thin wings and dance in the warm 
 beam 
 
 That waked them into life. Even the green 
 trees 
 
 Partake the deep contentment; as they bend 
 
 To the soft winds, the sun from the blue sky 
 
 Looks in and sheds a blessing on the scene. 
 
 Scarce less the cleft-born wild-flower seems to 
 enjoy 
 
 Existence, than the winged plunderer 
 
 That sucks its sweets. The massy rocks them- 
 selves, 
 
 And the old and ponderous trunks of prostrate 
 Lrees 
 
 That lead from knoll to knoll a causey rude 
 
 Or bridge the sunken brook, and their dark 
 
 fae COOTS, 
 With all their earth upon them, twisting high, 
 Breathed fixed tranquillity. The rivulet 
 
53 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Sends forth glad sounds, and tripping o’er its 
 bed 
 
 Of pebbly sands, or leaping down the rocks, 
 
 Seems, with continuous laughter, to rejoice 
 
 In its own being. Softly tread the marge, 
 
 Lest from her midway perch thou scare the 
 wren 
 
 That dips her bill in water. The cool wind, 
 
 That stirs the stream in play, shall come to thee, 
 
 Like one that loves thee nor will let thee pass 
 
 Ungreeted, and shall give its light embrace. 
 
 
 
 ‘TO A MOSQUITO 
 
 Fair insect! that, with threadlike legs spread 
 out, 
 And blood-extracting bill and filmy wing, 
 Dost murmur, as thou slowly sail’st about, 
 In pitiless ears full many a plaintive thing, 
 And tell how little our large veins should bleed, 
 Would we but yield them to thy bitter need. 
 
 Unwillingly, I own, and, what is worse, 
 Full angrily, men hearken to thy plaint, 
 Thou gettest many a brush, and many a curse. 
 For saying thou art gaunt, and starved, and 
 faint; 
 Even the old beggar, while he asks for food, 
 Would kill thee, hapless stranger, if he could. 
 
 I call thee stranger, for the town, 1 ween, 
 Has not the honor of so proud a birth, 
 Thou com’st from Jersey meadows, fresh and 
 green, 
 
BRYANT’S POEms 69 
 
 The offspring of the gods, though born on 
 earth; 
 For Titan was thy sire, and fair was she, 
 The ocean nymph, that nursed thy infancy. 
 
 Beneath the rushes was thy cradle swung, 
 And when, at length, thy gauzy wings grew 
 strong, 
 
 Abroad to gentle airs their folds were flung, 
 Rose in the sky and bore thee soft along: 
 The south wind breathed to waft thee on thy 
 
 way, 
 And danced and shone beneath the billowy 
 bay. 
 
 And calm, afar, the city spires arose, — 
 Thence didst thou hear the distant hum of 
 men, 
 And as its grateful odors met thy nose, 
 Didst seem to smell thy native marsh again; 
 Fair lay its crowded streets, and at the sight 
 Thy tiny song's grew shriller with delight. 
 
 At length thy pinions fluttered in Broadway— 
 Ah, there were fairy steps, and white necks 
 kissed 
 By wanton airs, and eyes whose killing ray 
 Shone through the snowy veils like stars 
 through mist; 
 And fresh as morn, on manya cheek and 
 chin, 
 Bloomed the bright blood through the trans- 
 parent skin. 
 
70 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Oh, these were sights to touch an anchorite! 
 What! do I hear thy slender voice complain? 
 
 Thou wailest, when I talk of beauty’s light, 
 As if it brought the memory of pain: 
 
 Thou art a wayward being—well—come near, 
 
 And pour thy tale of sorrow in my ear, 
 
 What say’st thou—slanderer!—rouge makes 
 thee sick? 
 And China bloom at best is sorry food? 
 And Rowland’s Kalydor, if laid on thick, 
 Poisons the thirsty wretch that bores for 
 blood? 
 Go! ’twas a just reward that met thy crime— 
 But shun the sacrilege another time. 
 
 That bloom was made to look at, not to touch, 
 To worship, not approach, that radiant white; 
 And well might sudden vengeance light on 
 such 
 As dared, like thee, most impiously to bite. 
 Thou shouldst have gazed at distance and 
 admired, 
 Murmured thy adoration and retired. 
 
 Thou’rt welcome to the town—but why come 
 here 
 
 To bleed a brother poet, gaunt like thee? 
 Alas! the little blood I have is dear, 
 
 And thin will be the banquet drawn from me. 
 Look round—the pale-eyed sisters in my cell, 
 Thy old acquaintance, Song and Famine, 
 
 dwell. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 71 
 
 Try some plump alderman, and suck the blood 
 Enriched by generous wine and costly meat, 
 On well-filled skins, sleek as thy native mud, 
 Fix thy light pump and press thy freckled 
 feet: 
 Go to the men for whom, in ocean’s halls, 
 The oyster breeds, and the green turtle sprawls. 
 
 There corks are drawn, and the red vintage 
 flows 
 To fill the swelling veins for thee, and now 
 The ruddy cheek and now the ruddier nose 
 Shall tempt thee, as thou flittest round the 
 brow; 
 And, when the hour of sleep its quiet brings, 
 No angry hand shall rise to brush thy wings. 
 
 
 
 feshowk THE SPELL THAT HELD 
 ME LONG” 
 
 I broke the spell that held me long, 
 The dear, dear witchery of song. 
 
 I said, the poet’s idle lore 
 
 Shall waste my prime of years no more, 
 For Poetry, though heavenly born, 
 Consorts with poverty and scorn. 
 
 I broke the spell—nor deemed its power 
 Could fetter me another hour. 
 
 Ah, thoughtless! how could I forget 
 
 Its causes were around me yet? 
 
 For wheresoe’er I looked, the while, 
 Was Nature’s everlasting smile. 
 
TZ BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Still came and lingered on my sight 
 
 Of flowers and streams the bloom and light, 
 And glory of the stars and sun ;— 
 
 And these and poetry are one. 
 
 They, ere the world had held me long, 
 Recalled me to the love of song. 
 
 THE CONJUNCTION OF JUPITER AND 
 VENUS 
 
 I would not always reason. The straight 
 path 
 
 Wearies us with its never-varying lines, 
 And we grow melancholy. I would make 
 Reason my guide, but she should sometimes sit 
 Patiently by the way-side, while I traced 
 The mazes of the pleasant wilderness 
 Around me. She should be my counsellor, 
 But not my tyrant. For the spirit needs 
 Impulses from a deeper source than hers, 
 And there are motions, in the mind of man, 
 That she must look upon with awe. I bow 
 Reverently to her dictates, but not less 
 Hold to the fair illusions of old time— 
 Illusions that shed brightness over life, 
 And glory over nature. Look, even now, 
 Where two bright planets in the twilight meet, 
 Upon the saffron heaven,—the imperial star 
 Of Jove, and she that from her radiant urn 
 Pours forth the light of love. Let me believe, 
 Awhile, that they are met for ends of good, 
 Amid the evening glory, to confer 
 Of men and their affairs, and to shed down 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 73 
 
 ~. Kind influence. Lo! their orbs burn more 
 
 bright, 
 And shake out softer fires! The great earth 
 feels 
 The gladness and the quiet of the time. 
 Meekly the mighty river, that infolds 
 This mighty city, smooths his front, and far 
 Glitters and burns even to the rocky base 
 Of the dark heights that bound him to the West; 
 And a deep murmur, from the many streets, 
 Rises like a thanksgiving. Put we hence 
 Dark and sad thoughts awhile—there’s time 
 for them 
 Hereafter—on the morrow we will meet, 
 With melancholy looks, to tell our griefs, 
 And make each other wretched; this calm hour, 
 This balmy, blessed evening, we will give 
 To cheerful hopes and dreams of happy days, 
 Born of the meeting of those glorious stars. 
 
 Enough of drought has parched the year, and 
 scared 
 
 The land with dread of famine. Autumn, yet, 
 Shall make men glad with unexpected fruits. 
 The dog-star shall shine harmless; genial days 
 Shall softly glide away into the keen 
 And wholesome cold of winter; he that fears 
 The pestilence, shall gaze on those pure beams, 
 And breathe, with confidence, the quiet air. 
 
 Emblems of power and beauty! well may they 
 Shine brightest on our borders, and withdraw 
 Toward the great Pacific, marking out 
 The path of empire. Thus, in our own land, 
 
74 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Erelong, the better Genius of our race, 
 
 Having encompassed earth, and tamed its 
 tribes, 
 
 Shall sit him down beneath the farthest West, 
 
 By the shore of that calm ocean, and look back 
 
 On realms made happy. 
 
 Light the nuptial torch, 
 
 And say the glad, yet solemn rite, that knits 
 The youth and maiden. Happy days to them 
 That wed this evening!—a long life of love, 
 And blooming sons and daughters! Happy they 
 Born at this hour,—for they shall see an age 
 Whiter and holier than the past, and go 
 Late to their graves. Men shall wear softer 
 
 hearts, 
 Ana shudder at the butcheries of war, 
 As now at other murders. 
 
 Hapless Greece! 
 
 Enough of blood has wet thy rocks, and stained 
 Thy rivers; deep enough thy chains have worn 
 Their links into thy flesh; the sacrifice 
 Of thy pure maidens, and thy innocent babes, 
 And reverend priests, has expiated all 
 Thy crimes of old. In yonder mingling lights 
 There is an omen of good days for thee. 
 Thou shalt arise from ’midst the dust and sit 
 Again among the nations. Thine own arm 
 Shall yet redeem thee. Not in wars like thine 
 The worldtakes part. Beitastrife of kings, — 
 Despot with despot battling for a throne,— 
 And Europe shall be stirred throughout her 
 
 realms, 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 15 
 
 Nations shall put on harness, and shall fall 
 
 Upon each other, and in all their bounds 
 
 The wailing of the childless shall not cease. 
 
 Thine is a war for liberty, and thou 
 
 Must fight it single-handed. The old world 
 
 Looks coldly on the murderers of thy race, 
 
 And leaves thee to the struggle; and the new, — 
 
 I fear me thou couldst tell a shameful tale 
 
 Of fraud and lust of gain;—thy treasury 
 drained, 
 
 And Missolonghi fallen. Yet thy wrongs 
 
 Shall put new strength into thy heart and hand, 
 
 And God and thy good sword shall yet work out, 
 
 For thee, a terrible deliverance. 
 
 TO THE FRINGED GENTIAN 
 
 Thou blossom bright with autumn dew, 
 And colored with the heaven’s own blue, 
 That openest, when the quiet light 
 succeeds the keen and frosty night. 
 
 Thou comest not when violets lean 
 
 O’er wandering brooks and springs unseen, 
 Or columbines, in purple dressed, 
 
 Nod o’er the ground-bird’s hidden nest. 
 
 Thou waitest late, and com’st alone, 
 When woods are bare and birds are flown, 
 And frosts and shortening days portend 
 The aged year is near his end. 
 
76 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye 
 Look through its fringes to the sky, 
 Blue—blue—as if that sky let fall 
 A flower from its cerulean wall. 
 
 I would that thus, when I shall see 
 The hour of death draw near to me, 
 Hope, blossoming within my heart, 
 May look to heaven as I depart. 
 
 “INNOCENT CHILD AND SNOW-WHITE 
 FLOWER’”’ 
 
 Innocent child and snow-white flower! 
 
 Well are ye paired in your opening hour. 
 
 Thus should the pure and the lovely meet, 
 
 Stainless with stainless, and sweet with 
 sweet. 
 
 White as those leaves, just blown apart, 
 Are the folds of thy own young heart; 
 Guilty passion and cankering care 
 Never have left their traces there. 
 
 Artless one! though thou gazest now 
 
 O’er the white blossom with earnest brow, 
 Soon will it tire thy childish eye, 
 
 Fair as it is, thou wilt throw it by. 
 
 Throw it aside in thy weary hour, 
 
 Throw to the ground the fair white flower, 
 Yet, as thy tender years depart, 
 
 Keep that white and innocent heart. 
 
AN 
 
 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 OF HIS FATHERS 
 
 It is the spot I came to seek,— 
 My fathérs’ ancient burial-place, 
 
 Ere from these vales, ashamed and weak, 
 Withdrew our wasted race. 
 
 It is the spot—I know it well— 
 
 Of which our old traditions tell. 
 
 For here the upland bank sends out 
 A ridge toward the river-side; 
 I know the shaggy hills about, 
 The meadows smooth and wide, 
 The plains, that, toward the southern sky, 
 Fenced east and west by mountains lie. 
 
 A white man, gazing on the scene, 
 Would say a lovely spot was here, 
 
 And praise the lawns, so fresh and green, 
 Between the hills so sheer. 
 
 I like it not—I would the plain 
 
 Lay in its tall old groves again. 
 
 The sheep are on the slopes around, 
 The cattle in the meadows feed, 
 And laborers turn the crumbling ground, 
 Or drop the yellow seed, 
 And prancing steeds, in trappings gay, 
 Whirl the bright chariot o’er the way. 
 
 17 
 
 INDIAN AT THE BURIAL-PLACE 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Methinks it were a nobler sight 
 To see these vales in woods arrayed, 
 Their summits in the golden light, 
 Their trunks in grateful shade, 
 And herds of deer, that bounding go 
 O’er rills and prostrate trees below. 
 
 And then to mark the lord of all, 
 The forest hero, trained to wars, 
 Quivered and plumed, and lithe and tall, 
 And seamed with glorious scars, 
 Walk forth, amid his reign, to dare 
 The wolf, and grapple with the bear. 
 
 This bank, in which the dead were laid, 
 Was sacred when its soil was ours: 
 Hither the artless Indian maid 
 Brought wreaths of beads and flowers, 
 And the gray chief and gifted seer 
 Worshipped the god of thunders here. 
 
 But now the wheat is green and high 
 On clods that hid the warrior’s breast, 
 And scattered in the furrows lie 
 The weapons of his rest, 
 And there, in the loose sand, is thrown 
 Of his large arm the mouldering bone. 
 
 Ah, little thought the strong and brave, 
 Who bore the lifeless chieftain forth; 
 Or the young wife, that weeping gave 
 Her first-born to the earth, 
 That the pale race, who waste us now, 
 Among their bones should guide the plough. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 79 
 
 [hey waste us—ay—like April snow 
 In the warm noon, we shrink away; 
 
 And fast they follow, as we go 
 Towards the setting day,— 
 
 Till they shall fill the land, and we 
 
 Are driven into the western sea, 
 
 But I behold a fearful sign, 
 To which the white men’s eyes are blind, 
 Their race may vanish hence, like mine, 
 And leave no trace behind, 
 Save ruins o’er the region spread, 
 And the white stones above the dead. 
 
 Before these fields were shorn and tilled, 
 Full to the brim our rivers flowed; 
 The melody of waters filled 
 The fresh and boundless wood; 
 And torrents dashed and rivulets played, 
 And fountains spouted in the shade. 
 
 Those grateful sounds are heard no more, 
 The springs are silent in the’sun, 
 The rivers, by the blackened shore, 
 With lessening current run; 
 The realm our tribes are crushed to get 
 May be a barren desert yet. 
 
80 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 TO AY GLOUD 
 
 Beautiful cloud! with folds so soft and fair, 
 
 Swimming in the pure quiet air! 
 
 Thy fleeces bathed in sunlight, while below 
 
 Thy shadow o’er the vale moves slow; 
 
 Where, midst their labor, pause the reaper train 
 
 As cool it comes along the grain. 
 
 Beautiful cloud! I would I were with thee 
 
 In thy calm way o’er land and sea: 
 
 To rest on thy unrolling skirts, and look 
 
 On Earth as on an open book; 
 
 On streams that tie her realms with silver 
 bands, 
 
 And the long ways that seam her lands; 
 
 And hear her humming cities, and the sound 
 
 Of the great ocean breaking round. 
 
 Ay—I would sail upon thy air-borne car 
 
 To blooming regions distant far, 
 
 To where the sun of Andalusia shines 
 
 On his own olive-groves and vines, 
 
 Or the soft lights of Italy’s bright sky 
 
 In smiles upon her ruins lie. 
 
 But I would woo the winds to let us rest 
 
 O’er Greece long fettered and oppressed, 
 
 Whose sons at length have heard the call that 
 comes 
 
 From the old battle-fields and tombs, 
 
 And risen, and drawn the sword, and on the foe 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 81 
 
 Have dealt the swift and desperate blow, 
 
 And the Othman power is cloven, and the stroke 
 Has touched its chains, and they are broke. 
 Ay, we would linger till the sunset there 
 Should come, to purple all the air, | 
 And thou reflect upon the sacred ground 
 
 The ruddy radiance streaming round. 
 
 Bright meteor! for the summer noontide made! 
 
 Thy peerless beauty yet shall fade. 
 
 The sun, that fills with light each glistening 
 fold, 
 
 Shall set, and leave thee dark and cold: 
 
 The blast shall rend thy skirts, or thou may’st 
 frown 
 
 In the dark heaven when storms come down, 
 
 And weep in rain, till man’s inquiring eye 
 
 Miss thee, forever, from the sky. 
 
 THE YELLOW VIOLET 
 
 When beechen buds begin to swell, 
 
 And woods the blue-bird’s warble know, 
 The yellow violet’s modest bell 
 
 Peeps from the last year’s leaves below. 
 
 Ere russet fields their green resume, 
 Sweet flower, I love, in forest bare, 
 To meet thee, when thy faint perfume 
 
 Alone is in the virgin air. 
 
 Of all her train, the hands of Spring 
 First plant thee in the watery mould, 
 
 And I have seen thee blossoming 
 Beside the snow-bank’s edges cold. 
 
 6 Bryant’s 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Thy parent sun, who bade thee view 
 Pale skies, and chilling moisture sip, 
 
 Has. bathed thee in his own bright hue, 
 And streaked with jet thy glowing lip. 
 
 Yet slight thy form, and low thy seat, 
 And earthward bent thy gentle eye, 
 Unapt the passing view to meet, 
 When loftier flowers are flaunting nigh. 
 
 Oft, in the sunless April day, 
 Thy early smile has stayed my walk, 
 But ’midst the gorgeous blooms of May, 
 I passed thee on thy humble stalk. 
 
 So they, who climb to wealth, forget 
 The friends in darker fortunes tried. 
 [ copied them—but I regret 
 That I should ape the ways of pride. 
 
 And when again the genial hour 
 Awakes the painted tribes of light, 
 
 I’ll not o’erlook the modest flower . 
 That made the woods of April bright. 
 
 
 
 “I CANNOT FORGET WITH WHAT 
 FERVID DEVOTION. 
 
 I cannot forget with what fervid devotion 
 
 I worshipped the visions of verse and of fame; 
 
 Each gaze at the glories of earth, sky, and 
 ocean, 
 
 To my kindled emotions, was wind over 
 flame. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 83 
 
 And deep were my musings in life’s early blos- 
 som, 
 ’Mid the twilight of mountain groves wan- 
 dering long; 
 How thrilled my young veins, and how 
 throbbed my full bosom, 
 When o’er me descended the spirit of song. 
 
 *"Mong the deep-cloven fells that for ages had 
 listened 
 To the rush of the pebble-paved river be- 
 tween, 
 Where the kingfisher screamed and gray prec- 
 ipice glistened, 
 All breathless with awe have I gazed on the 
 scene; 
 
 Till I felt the dark power o’er my reveries 
 stealing, 
 From his throne in the depth of that stern 
 solitude, 
 And he breathed through iny lips, in that tem- 
 pest of feeling, 
 Strains warm with his spirit, though artless 
 and rude. 
 
 Bright visions! I mixed with the world and ye 
 faded; | 
 No longer your pure rural worshipper now; 
 In the haunts your continual presence per- 
 vaded, 
 Ye shrink from the signet of care on my brow. 
 
84 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 In the old mossy groves on the breast of the 
 mountain, 
 In deep lonely glens where the waters com- 
 plain, 
 By the shade of the rock, by the gush of the 
 fountain, 
 I seek your loved footsteps, but seek them in 
 vain, 
 
 Oh, leave not, forlorn and forever forsaken, 
 Your pupil and victim, to life and its tears! 
 
 But sometimes return, and in mercy awaken 
 The glories ye showed to his earlier years. 
 
 MUTATION 
 (A SONNET) 
 
 They talk of short-lived pleasure—be it so— 
 Pain dies as quickly: stern, hard-featured pain 
 Expires, and lets her weary prisoner go. 
 
 The fiercest agonies have shortest reign; 
 And after dreams of horror, comes again 
 The welcome morning with its rays of peace. 
 
 Oblivion, softly wiping out the stain, 
 Makes the strong secret pangs of shame to cease: 
 Remorse is virtue’s root; its fair increase 
 Are fruits of innocence and blessedness: 
 Thus joy, o’erborne and bound, doth still 
 release 
 His young limbs from the chains that round 
 him press. 
 Weep not that the world changes—did it keep 
 A stable changeless state, ’twere cause indeed 
 to weep. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 85 
 
 Pewee TO THE NORTH STAR | 
 
 The sad and solemn night 
 Has yet her multitude of cheerful fires; 
 The glorious host of light 
 Walk the dark hemisphere till she retires; 
 All through her silent watches, gliding slow, 
 Her constellations come, and climb the heav- 
 ens, and go. 
 
 Day, too, hath many a star 
 To grace his gorgeous reign, as bright as they: 
 Through the blue fields afar, 
 Unseen, they follow in his flaming way: 
 Many a bright lingerer, as the eve grows dim, 
 Tells what aradiant troop arose and set with him. 
 
 And thou dost see them rise, 
 Star of the Pole! and thou dost see them set. 
 Alone, in thy cold skies, 
 Thou keep’st thy old unmoving station yet, 
 Nor join’st the dances of that glittering train, 
 Nor dipp’st thy virgin orb in the blue western 
 main. 
 
 There, at morn’s rosy birth, 
 Thou lookest meekly through the kindling air, 
 And eve, that round the earth 
 Chases the day, beholds thee watching there; 
 There noontide finds thee, and the hour that calls 
 The shapes of polar flame to scale heaven’s 
 azure walls. 
 
86 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Alike, beneath thine eye, 
 The deeds of darkness and of light are done; 
 High toward the star-lit sky 
 Towns blaze, the smoke of battle blots the sun, 
 The night-storm on a thousand hills is loud— 
 And the strong wind of day doth mingle sea 
 and cloud. 
 
 On thy unaltering blaze 
 The half-wrecked mariner, his compass lost, 
 Fixes his steady gaze, 
 And steers, undoubting, to the friendly coast; 
 And they who stray in perilous wastes, by night, 
 Are glad when thou dost shine to guide their 
 footsteps right. 
 
 And, therefore, bards of old, 
 Sages, and hermits of the solemn wood, 
 Did in thy beams behold 
 A beauteous type of that unchanging good, 
 That bright eternal beacon, by whose ray 
 The voyager of time should shape his heedful 
 way. 
 
 THE TWENTY-SECOND OF DECEMBER 
 
 Wild was the day; the wintry sea 
 Moaned sadly on New England’s strand, 
 When first, the thoughtful and the free, 
 Our fathers trod the desert land. 
 
 They little thought how pure a light, 
 With years, should gather round that day; 
 How love should keep their memories bright, 
 How wide a realm their sons should sway. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 87 
 
 Green are their bays; but greener still 
 Shall round their spreading fame _ be 
 wreathed, 
 And regions, now untrod, shall thrill 
 With reverence, when their names are 
 breathed. 
 
 Till where the sun, with softer fires, 
 Looks on the vast Pacific’s sleep, 
 The children of the pilgrim sires 
 This hallowed day like us shall keep. 
 
 
 
 HYMN OF THE WALDENSES 
 
 Hear, Father, hear thy faint afflicted flock 
 
 Cry to thee, from the desert and the rock; 
 
 While those, who seek toslay thy children, hold 
 
 Blasphemous worship under roofs of gold; 
 
 And the broad goodly lands, with pleasant airs 
 
 That nurse the grape and wave the grain, are 
 theirs. 
 
 Yet better were this mountain wilderness. 
 And this wild life of danger and distress— 
 Watchings by night and perilous flight by day, 
 And meetings in the depths of earth to pray, 
 Better, far better, than to kneel with them, 
 And pay the impious rite thy laws condemn. 
 
 Thou, Lord, dost hold the thunder; the firm land 
 Tosses in billows when it feels thy hand; 
 Thou dashest nation against nation, then 
 Stillest the angry world to peace again. 
 
 Oh, touch their stony hearts who hunt thy sons— 
 The murderers of our wives and little ones. 
 
88 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Yet, mighty God, yet shall thy frown look forth 
 Unveiled, and terribly shall shake the earth. 
 Then the foul power of priestly sin and all 
 
 Its long-upheld idolatries shall fall. 
 
 Thou shalt raise up the trampled and oppressed, 
 And thy delivered saints shall dwell in rest. 
 
 SONG OF THE STARS 
 
 When the radiant morn of creation broke, 
 
 And the world in the smile of God awoke, 
 
 And the empty realms of darkness and death 
 
 Were moved through their depths by his 
 mighty breath, 
 
 And orbs of beauty and spheres of flame 
 
 From the void abyss by myriads canie,— 
 
 In the joy of youth as they darted away, 
 
 Through the widening wastes of space to play, 
 
 Their silver voices in chorus rung, 
 
 And this was the song the bright ones sung. 
 
 ‘“‘Away, away, through the wide, wide sky,— 
 The fair blue fields that before us lie,— 
 
 Each sun, with the worlds that round him roll, 
 Each planet, poised on her turning pole; 
 
 With her isles of green and her clouds of white, 
 And her waters that lie like fluid hight. 
 
 ‘*For the source of glory uncovers his face, 
 And the brightness o’erflows unbounded space 
 And we drink, as we go, the luminous tides 
 In our ruddy air and our blooming sides: 
 
 Lo, yonder the living splendors play; 
 
 Away, on our joyous path, away! 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 89 
 
 **Look, look, through our glittering ranks afar, 
 
 In the infinite azure, star after star, 
 
 How they brighten and bloom as they Byitay 
 pass! 
 
 How the verdure runs o’er each rolling mass! 
 
 And the path of the gentle winds is seen, 
 
 Where the small waves dance, and the young 
 woods lean. 
 
 **And see, where the brighter day-beams pour, 
 
 How the rainbows hang in the sunny shower; 
 
 And the morn and even, with their pomp of 
 hues, 
 
 Shift o'er the bright planets and shed their 
 dews; 
 
 And ’twixt them both, o’er the teeming ground, 
 
 With their shadowy cone the night goes round! 
 
 *““Away, away! in our blossoming bowers, 
 
 In the soft air wrapping these spheres of ours, 
 
 In the seas and fountains that shine with morn, 
 
 See, Love is brooding, and Life is born 
 
 And breathing myriads are breaking from 
 night, 
 
 To rejoice like us, in motion and light. 
 
 ‘*Glide on in your beauty, ye youthful spheres, 
 To weave the dance that measures the years, 
 Glide on, in the glory and gladness sent, 
 
 To the farthest wall of the firmament, — 
 
 The boundless visible smile of Him, 
 
 To the veil of whose brow your lamps are dim.”’ 
 
90 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 “NO MAN KNOWETH HIS 
 SEPULCHRE.”’ 
 
 When he, who, from the scourge of wrong, 
 Aroused the Hebrew tribes to fly, 
 
 Saw the fair region, promised long, 
 And bowed him on the hills to die; 
 
 God made his grave, to men unknown, 
 Where Moab’s rocks a vale infold, 
 And laid the aged seer alone 
 To slumber while the world grows old. 
 
 Thus still, whene’er the good and just 
 Close the dim eye on life and pain, 
 
 Heaven watches o’er their sleeping dust, 
 Till the pure spirit comes again. 
 
 Though nameless, trampled, and forgot, 
 His servant’s humble ashes lie, 
 
 Yet God has marked and sealed the spot, 
 To call its inmates to the sky. 
 
 —_—_—_——. 
 
 *““BLESSED ARE THEY THAT MOURN ® 
 
 Oh, deem not they are blest alone 
 Whose lives a peaceful tenor keep; 
 The Power who pities man, has shown 
 A blessing for the eyes that weep. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 91 
 
 The light of smiles shall fill again 
 The lids that overflow with tears; 
 
 And weary hours of woe and pain 
 Are promises of happier years. 
 
 There is a day of sunny rest 
 For every dark and troubled night; 
 And grief may bide, an evening guest, 
 But ioy shall come with early light. 
 
 And thou, who, o’er thy friend’s low bier 
 Sheddest the bitter drops like rain, 
 
 Hope that a brighter, happier sphere, 
 Will give him to thy arms again. 
 
 Nor let the good man’s trust depart, 
 Though life its common gifts deny, 
 
 Though with a pierced and bleeding heart, 
 And spurned of men, he goes to die. 
 
 For God has marked each sorrowing day, 
 And numbered every secret tear, 
 
 And heaven’s long age of bliss shall pay 
 For all his children suffer here. 
 
 THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS 
 
 The melancholy days are come, the saddest of 
 the year, 
 
 Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and mea- 
 dows brown and sear. 
 
 Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the with- 
 ered leaves lie dead; 
 
92 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the 
 rabbit’s tread. 
 
 The robin and the wren are flown, and from 
 the shrubs the jay, 
 
 And from the wood-top calls the crow, through 
 all the gloomy day. 
 
 Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, 
 that lately sprang and stood 
 
 In brighter light and softer air, a beauteous sis- 
 terhood? 
 
 Alas! they all are in their graves, the gentle 
 race of flowers 
 
 Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and 
 good of ours. 
 
 The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold 
 November rain 
 
 Calls not, from out the gloomy earth, the lovely 
 ones again. 
 
 The wind-flower and the violet, they perished 
 long ago, 
 
 And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid 
 the summer glow; 
 
 But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in 
 the wood, 
 
 And the yellow sun-flower by the brook in 
 autumn beauty stood, 
 
 Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, 
 as falls the plague on men, 
 
 And the brightness of their smile was gone, 
 from upland, glade, and glen. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 93 
 
 And now, when comes the calm mild day, as 
 still such days will come, 
 
 To call the squirrel and the bee from out their 
 winter home; 
 
 When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, 
 though all the trees are still, 
 
 And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of 
 the rill, 
 
 The south wind searches for the flowers whose 
 fragrance late he bore, 
 
 And sighs to find them in the wood and by the 
 stream no more. 
 
 And then I think of one who in her youthful 
 beauty died, 
 
 The fair, meek blossom that grew up and faded 
 by my side; 
 
 In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the 
 forest cast the leaf, 
 
 And we wept that one so lovely should have a 
 life so brief: 
 
 Yet not unmeetit was that one, like that young 
 friend of ours, 
 
 So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with 
 the flowers. 
 
 TO A WATERFOWL 
 
 Whither, ’midst falling dew, 
 While glow the heavens with the last steps of 
 day, 
 Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue 
 Thy solitary way? 
 
94 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Vainly the fowler’s eye 
 Might mark thy distant flight todo thee wrong, 
 As, darkly painted on the crimson sky, 
 
 Thy figure floats along. 
 
 Seek’st thou the plashy brink 
 
 Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, 
 
 Or where the rocking billows rise and sink 
 On the chafed ocean side? 
 
 There is a Power whose care 
 Teaches thy way along that pathless coast, 
 The desert and illimitable air— 
 
 Lone wandering, but not lost. 
 
 All day thy wings have fanned, 
 At that far height, the cold thin atmosphere, 
 Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, 
 Though the dark night is near, 
 
 And soon that toil shall end; 
 Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, 
 And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall 
 bend, 
 Soon, o’er thy sheltered nest. 
 
 Thou’rt gone, the abyss of heaven 
 Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart 
 Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, 
 And shall not soon depart. 
 
 He who, from zone to zone, 
 Guides through the boundless sky thy certain 
 flight, 
 In the long way that I must tread alone 
 Will lead my steps aright. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 95 
 
 THE BATTLE-FIELD 
 
 Once this soft turf, this rivulet’s sands, 
 Were trampled by a hurrying crowd, 
 
 And fiery hearts and armed hands 
 Encountered in the battle cloud. 
 
 Ah! never shall the land forget 
 How gushed the life-blood of her brave— 
 Gushed, warm with hope and valor. yet, 
 Upon the soil they fought to save. 
 
 Now all is calm and fresh and still, 
 Alone the chirp of flitting bird, 
 
 And talk of children on the hill, 
 And bell of wandering kine, are heard. 
 
 No solemn host goes trailing by 
 The black-mouthed gun and staggering 
 wain; 
 Men start not at the battle cry; 
 Oh, be it never heard again! 
 
 Soon rested those who fought—but thou, 
 Who minglest in the harder strife 
 
 For:truths which men receive not now, 
 Thy warfare only ends with life. 
 
 A friendless warfare! lingering long 
 Through weary day and weary year; 
 
 A wild and many-weaponed throng 
 Hang on thy front and flank and rear. 
 
96 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Yet nerve thy spirit to the proof, 
 And blench not at thy chosen lot; 
 The timid good may stand aloof, 
 The sage may frown—yet faint thou not! 
 
 Nor heed the shaft too surely cast, 
 The hissing, stinging bolt of scorn; 
 
 For with thy side shall dwell, at last, 
 The victory of endurance born. 
 
 Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again; 
 The eternal years of God are hers; 
 
 But Error, wounded, writhes with pain, 
 And dies among his worshippers. 
 
 Yea, though thou lie upon the dust, 
 
 When those who helped thee flee in fear, 
 Die full of hope and manly trust, 
 
 Like those who fell in battle here. 
 
 Another hand thy sword shall wield, 
 Another hand the standard wave, 
 
 Till from the trumpet’s mouth is pealed 
 The blast of triumph o’er thy grave! 
 
 THE WINDS 
 
 Ye winds, ye unseen currents of the air, 
 Softly ye played a few brief hours ago; 
 Ye bore the murmuring bee; ye tossed the hair 
 O’er maiden cheeks, that took a fresher 
 glow; 
 Ye rolled the round white cloud through depths 
 of blue; 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 97 
 
 Ye shook from shaded flowers the lingering dew; 
 Before you the catalpa’s blossoms flew, 
 Light blossoms, dropping on the grass lik 
 snow. 
 
 How are ye changed! Ye take the cataract’s 
 sound; 
 Ye take the whirlpool’s fury and its might; 
 The mountain shudders as ye sweep the ground ; 
 The valley woods lie prone beneath you: 
 flight. 
 The clouds before you shoot like eagles past; 
 The homes of men are rocking in your blast; 
 Ye lift the roofs like autumn leaves, and cast, 
 Skyward, the whirling fragments out of sight. 
 
 The weary fowls of heaven make wing in vain, 
 
 To’scape your wrath; ye seize and dash them 
 dead. 
 
 Against the earth ye drive the roaring rain; 
 The harvest field becomes a river’s bed; 
 
 And torrents tumble from the hiils around, 
 
 Plains turn to lakes, and villages are drowned, 
 
 And wailing voices, ’midst the tempest’s sound, 
 Rise, as the rushing waters swell and spread. 
 
 Ye dart upon the deep, and straight is heard 
 A wilder roar, and men grow pale, and pray; 
 
 Ye fling its floods around you, as a bird 
 Flings o’er his shivering plumes the foun- 
 
 tain’s spray. 
 
 See! to the breaking mast the sailor clings; 
 
 Ye scoop the ocean to its briny springs, 
 
 And take the mountain billow on your wings, 
 And pile the wreck of navies round the bay. 
 7 Bryant’s 
 
98 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Why rage ye thus?—no strife for liberty 
 Has made you mad; no tyrant, strong through 
 fear, 
 Has chained your pinions till ye wrenched them 
 irec: 
 
 And rushed into the unmeasured atmosphere: 
 For ve were born in freedom where ye blow; 
 Free o’er the mighty deep to come and go; 
 Earth’s solemn woods were yours, her wastes 
 
 of snow, 
 
 Her isles where summer blossoms all the 
 
 year, 
 
 O ye wild winds, a mightier Power than yours 
 In chains upon the shore of Europe lies; 
 The sceptered throng, whose fetters he en- 
 dures, 
 Watch his mute throes with terror in their 
 eyes: 
 And armed warriors all around him stand, 
 And, as he struggles, tighten every band, 
 And lift the heavy spear, with threatening hand, 
 To pierce the victim, should he strive to rise. 
 
 Yet oh, when that wronged Spirit of our race 
 Shall break, as soon he must, his long-worn 
 chains, 
 And leap in freedom from his prison-place, 
 Lord of his ancient hills and fruitful plains, 
 Let him not rise, like these mad winds of air, 
 To waste the loveliness that time could spare, 
 To fill the earth with woe, and blot her fair 
 Unconscious breast with blood from human 
 veins. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 98 
 
 But may he like the Spring-time come abroad, 
 Who crumbles winter’s gyves with gentle 
 might, 
 When in the genial breeze, the breath of God, 
 Come spouting up the unsealed springs to 
 light; 
 Flowers start from their dark prisons at his 
 feet, 
 The woods, long dumb, await to hymnings 
 sweet, 
 And morn and eve, whose glimmering almost 
 meet, 
 Crowd back to narrow bounds the ancient 
 night. 
 
 —_——_—. 
 
 THE GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS 
 
 Here we halt our march, and pitch our tent, 
 On the rugged forest ground, 
 
 And light our fire with the branches rent, 
 By winds from the beeches round. 
 
 Wild storms have torn this ancient wood, 
 But a wilder is at hand, 
 
 With hail of iron and rain of blood, 
 To sweep and scath the land. 
 
 How the bark waste rings with voices shrill, 
 That startle the sleeping bird, 
 To-morrow eve must the voice be still, 
 And the step must fall unheard. 
 The Briton lies by the blue Champlain, 
 - In Ticonderoga’s towers, 
 And ere the sun rise twice again, 
 The towers and the lake are ours. 
 
100 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Fill up the bowl from the brook that glides, 
 Where the fireflies light the brake; 
 
 A ruddier juice the Briton hides, 
 In his fortress by the lake. 
 
 Build high the fire, till the panther leap 
 From his lofty perch in fright, 
 
 And we’ll strengthen our weary arms with 
 
 sleep, 
 
 For the deeds of to-morrow night. 
 
 
 
 THE FUTURE LIFE 
 
 How shall I know thee in the sphere which 
 keeps 
 The disembodied spirits of the dead, 
 When all of thee that time could wither sleeps 
 And perishes among the dust we tread? 
 
 For I shall feel the sting of ceaseless pain 
 If there I meet thy gentle presence not; 
 
 Nor hear the voice I love, nor read again 
 In thy serenest eyes the tender thought. 
 
 Will not thy own meek heart demand me there? 
 That heart whose fondest throbs to me were 
 given? 
 My name on earth was ever in thy prayer, 
 Shall it be banished from thy tongue in 
 heaven? 
 
 In meadows fanned by heaven's life-breathing 
 wind, 
 
 In the resplendence of that glorious sphere, 
 
 And larger movements of the unfettered mind, 
 
 Wilt thou forget the love that joined us here? 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 101 
 
 The love that lived through all the stormy past, 
 And meekly with my harsher nature bore, 
 
 And deeper grew, and tenderer to the last, 
 Shall it expire with life, and be no more? 
 
 A happier lot than mine, and larger light, 
 Await thee there; for thou hast bowed thy 
 will 
 In cheerful homage to the rule of right, 
 And lovest all, and renderest good for ill. 
 
 For me, the sordid cares in which I dwell, 
 Shrink and consume my heart, as heat the 
 scroll; 
 And wrath hath left its scar—that fire of hell 
 Has left its frightful scar upon my soul. 
 
 Yet, though thou wear’st the glory of the sky, 
 Wilt thou not keep the same beloved name, 
 The same fair thoughtful brow, and gentle eye, 
 Lovelier in heaven’s sweet climate, yet the 
 same? 
 
 Shalt thou not teach me, in that calmer home, 
 The wisdom that I learned so ill in this- 
 The wisdom which is love—till I become 
 Thy fit companion in that land of bliss? 
 
 
 
 THE OLD MAN’S COUNSEL 
 
 Among our hills and valleys, I have known 
 Wise and grave men, who, while their diligent 
 hands 
 Tendered or gathered in the fruits of earth, 
 Were reverent learners in the solemn school 
 Of nature. Not in vain to them were sent 
 
102 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Seed-time and harvest, or the vernal shower 
 
 That darkened the brown tilth, or snow that 
 beat 
 
 On the white winter hills. Each brought, in 
 turn, 
 
 Some truth, some lesson on the life of man, 
 
 Or recognition of the Eternal mind 
 
 Who veils his glory with the elements. 
 
 One such I knew long since, a white-haired 
 man, 
 
 Pithy of speech, and merry when he would; 
 A genial optimist, who daily drew 
 From what he saw his quaint moralities. 
 Kindly he held communion, though so old, 
 With mea dreaming boy, and taught me much 
 That books tell not, and I shall ne’er forget. 
 
 Thesun of May was bright in middle heaven 
 
 And steeped the sprouting forests, the green 
 hills 
 
 And emerald wheat-fields, in his yellow light. 
 
 Upon the apple-tree, where rosy buds 
 
 Stood clustered, ready to burst forth in bloom, 
 
 The robin warbled forth his full clear note 
 
 For hours, and wearied not. Within the woods, 
 
 Whose young and half-transparent leaves scarce 
 cast 
 
 A shade, gay circles of anemones 
 
 Danced on their stalks; the shadbush, white 
 with flowers, 
 
 Brightened the glens, the new-leaved butter- 
 nut 
 
 And quivering poplar to the roving breeze 
 
SRYANT’S POEMS 103 
 
 Gave a balsamic fragrance. In the fields 
 
 I saw the pulses of the gentle wind 
 
 On the young grass. My heart was touched 
 with joy 
 
 At so much beauty, flushing every hour 
 
 Into a fuller beauty; but my friend, 
 
 The thoughtful ancient, standing at my side, 
 
 Gazed on it mildly sad.. I asked him why. 
 
 ‘“Well may’st thou join in gladness,’’ he 
 replied, 
 **With the glad earth, her springing plants and 
 flowers, 
 And this soft wind, the herald of the green 
 Luxuriant summer. Thou art young like them, 
 And well may’st thou rejoice. But while the 
 flight Mop 
 Of seasons fills and knits thy spreading frame, 
 It withers mine, and thins my hair, and dims 
 These eyes, whose fading light shall soon be 
 quenched 
 In utter darkness. Hearest thou that bird?’’ 
 
 I listened, and from ’midst the depth of woods 
 Heard the love-signal of the grouse, that wears 
 A sable ruff around his mottled neck; 
 Partridge they call him by our northern 
 
 streams, 
 And pheasant by the Delaware. He beat 
 ’Gainst his barred sides his speckled wings, and 
 made 
 A sound like distant thunder; slow the strokes 
 At first, then faster and faster, till at iength 
 They passed into a murmur and were still. 
 
304 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 ‘*There hast thou,’’ said my friend, ‘‘a fitting 
 
 type 
 
 Of human life. ’Tis an old truth, I know, 
 
 But images like these revive the power 
 
 Of long familiar truths. Slow pass our days ~ 
 
 In childhood, and the hours of light are 
 long 
 
 Betwixt the morn and eve; with swifter lapse 
 
 They glide in manhood, and in age they fly; 
 
 Till days and seasons flit before the mind 
 
 As flit the snow-flakes in a winter storm, 
 
 seen rather than distinguished. Ah! I seem 
 
 As if I sat within a helpless bark, 
 
 By swiftly running waters hurried on 
 
 To shoot some mighty cliff. Along the banks 
 
 Grove after grove, rock after frowning rock, 
 
 Bare sands and pleasant homes, and flowery 
 nooks, 
 
 And isles and whirlpools in the stream, appear 
 
 Each after each, but the devoted skiff 
 
 Darts by so swiftly that their images 
 
 Dwell not upon the mind, or only dwell 
 
 In dim confusion; faster yet I sweep 
 
 By other banks and the great gulf is near. 
 
 ‘Wisely, my son, while yet thy days are 
 long, 
 
 And this fair change of seasons passes slow, 
 Gather and treasure up the good they yield— 
 All that they teach of virtue, of pure thoughts 
 And kind affections, reverence for thy God 
 And for thy brethren; so when thou shalt come 
 Intothese barren years, thou may’st not bring 
 A mind unfurnished and a withered heart.”’ 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 1U5 
 
 Long since that white-haired ancient slept— 
 but still, 
 When the red flower-buds crowd the orchard 
 bough, 
 And the ruffed grouse is drumming far within 
 The woods, his venerable form again 
 Is at my side, his voice is in my ear. 
 
 
 
 AN EVENING REVERIE 
 (FROM AN UNFINISHED POEM) 
 
 The summer day is closed—the sun is set: 
 
 Well they have done their office, those bright 
 hours, 
 
 The latest of whose train goes softly out 
 
 In the red West. The green blade of the 
 ground 
 
 Has risen, and herds have cropped it; the 
 young twig 
 
 Has spread its plaited tissues to the sun; 
 
 Flowers of the garden and the waste have blown 
 
 And withered; seeds have fallen upon the soil, 
 
 From bursting cells, and in their graves await 
 
 Their resurrection. Insects from the pools 
 
 Have filled the air awhile with humming wings, 
 
 That now are still forever; painted moths 
 
 Have wandered the blue sky, and died again; 
 
 The mother-bird hath broken, for her brood, 
 
 Their prison shell, or shoved them from the 
 nest, 
 
 Plumed for their earliest flight. In bright 
 alcoves, 
 
 In woodland cottages with barky walls, 
 
106 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 In noisome cells of the tumultuous town, 
 
 Mothers have clasped with joy the new-born 
 babe. 
 
 Graves by the lonely forest, by the shore 
 
 Of rivers and of ocean, by the ways 
 
 Of the thronged city, have been hollowed out 
 
 And filled, and closed. This day hath parted 
 friends 
 
 That ne’er before were parted; it hath knit 
 
 New friendships; it hath seen the maiden plight 
 
 Her faith, and trust her peace to him who 
 long 
 
 Had wooed; and it hath heard, from lips which 
 late 
 
 Were eloquent of love, the first harsh word, 
 
 That told the wedded one her peace was flown. 
 
 Fareweiltothe sweet sunshine! One glad day 
 
 Is added now to Childhood’s merry days, 
 
 And one calm day to those of quiet Age. 
 
 Still the fleet hours run on; and as I lean, 
 
 Amid the thickening darkness, lamps are lit, 
 
 By those who watch the dead, and those who 
 twine 
 
 Flowers for the bride. The mother from the 
 eyes 
 
 Of her sick infant shades the painful light, 
 
 And sadly listens to his quick-drawn breath. 
 
 Oh thou great Movement of the Universe, 
 Or Change, or Flight of Time—for ye are one! 
 That bearest, silently, this visible scene 
 Into night’s shadow and the streaming rays 
 Of starlight, whither art thou bearing me? 
 
 I feel the mighty current sweep me on, 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 107 
 
 Yet know not whither. Man foretells afar 
 
 The courses of the stars; the very hour 
 
 He knows when they shall darken or grow 
 bright; 
 
 Yet doth the eclipse of Sorrow and of Death 
 
 Come unforewarned. Who next, of those I love, 
 
 Shall pass from life, or, sadder yet, shall fall 
 
 From virtue? Strife with foes, or bitterer strife 
 
 With friends, or shame and general scorn of 
 men— 
 
 Which who can bear?—or the fierce rank of 
 pain, 
 
 Lie they within my path? Or shall the years 
 
 Push me, with soft and inoffensive pace, 
 
 Into the stilly twilight of my age? 
 
 Or do the portals of another life 
 
 Even now, while lam glorying in my strength, 
 
 Impend around me? Oh! beyond that bourne, 
 
 In the vast cycle of being’ which begins 
 
 At that dread threshold, with what fairer forms 
 
 Shall the great law of change and progress 
 clothe 
 
 Its workings? Gently—so have good men 
 taught— 
 
 Gently, and without grief, the old shall glide 
 
 Into the new; the eternal flow of things, 
 
 Like a bright river of the fields of heaven, 
 
 Shall journey onward in perpetual peace. 
 
108 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 THE ANTIQUITY OF FREEDOM 
 
 Here are old trees, tall oaks and gnarled 
 
 pines, 
 
 That stream with gray-green mosses; here the 
 ground 
 
 Was never trenched by spade, and flowers 
 spring up 
 
 Unsown, and die ungathered. It is sweet 
 
 To linger here, among the flittering birds, 
 
 And leaping squirrels, wandering brooks, and 
 winds 
 
 That shake the leaves, and scatter as they pass, 
 
 A fragrance from the cedars, thickly set 
 
 With pale blue berries. In these peaceful 
 shades— 
 
 Peaceful, unpruned, immeasurably old— 
 
 My thoughts go up the long dim path of years, 
 
 Back to the earliest days of liberty. 
 
 Oh Freedom! thou art not, as poets dream, 
 A fair young girl, with light and delicate limbs, 
 And wavy tresses gushing from the cap 
 With which the Roman master crowned his 
 
 slave 
 When he took off the gyves. A bearded man, 
 Armed to the teeth, art thou; one mailed hand 
 Grasps the broad shield, and one the sword; thy 
 brow, 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 109. 
 
 Glorious in beauty though it be, is scarred 
 
 With tokens of old wars; thy massive limbs 
 
 Are strong with struggling. Power at thee 
 has launched 
 
 His bolts, and with his lightning's smitten thee; 
 
 They could not quench the life thou hast from 
 heaven. 
 
 Merciless power has dug thy dungeon deep, 
 
 And his swart armorers, by a thousand fires, 
 
 Have forged thy chain; yet, while he deems 
 thee bound, 
 
 The links are shivered, and the prison walls 
 
 Fall outward; terribly thou springest forth, 
 
 As springs the flame above a burning pile, 
 
 And shoutest to the nations, who return 
 
 Thy shoutings, while the pale oppressor flies. 
 
 Thy birthright was not given by human 
 hands; 
 Thou wert twin-born with man. In pleasant 
 fields, 
 While yet our race was few, thou sat’st with him, 
 To tend the quiet flock and watch the stars, 
 And teach the reed to utter simple airs. 
 Thou by his side, amid the tangled wood, 
 Didst war upon the panther and the wolf, 
 His only foes; and thou with him didst draw 
 The earliest furrows on the mountain side, 
 soft with the deluge. Tyranny himself, ' 
 Thy enemy, although of reverend look, 
 Hoary with many years, and far obeyed, 
 Is later born than thou; and as he meets 
 The grave defiance of thine elder eye, 
 The usurper trembles in his fastnesses. 
 
A10 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Thou shalt wax stronger with the lapse of 
 
 years, . 
 
 But he shall fade into a feebler age; 
 
 Feebler, yet subtler. He shall weave his snares, 
 
 And spring them on thy careless steps, and clap 
 
 His withered hands, and from their ambush 
 call 
 
 His hordes to fall upon thee. He shall send 
 
 Quaint maskers, forms of fair and gallant mien, 
 
 Tocatch thy gaze, and uttering graceful words 
 
 To charm thy ear; while his sly imps, by 
 stealth, 
 
 Twine around thee threads of steel, light thread 
 on thread, 
 
 That grow to fetters; or bind down thy arms 
 
 With chains concealed in chaplets. Oh! not 
 yet 
 
 May’st thou unbrace thy corselet, nor lay by 
 
 Thy sword; nor yet, O Freedom! close thy lids 
 
 In slumber; for thine enemy never sleeps, 
 
 And thou must watch and combat till the day 
 
 Of the new earth and heaven. But wouldst 
 thou rest 
 
 Awhile from tumult and the frauds of men, 
 
 These old and friendly solitudes invite 
 
 Thy visit. They, while yet the forest trees 
 
 Were young upon the unviolated earth, 
 
 And yet the moss-stains on the rock were new, 
 
 Beheld thy glorious childhood, and rejoiced. 
 
IbRY ANT’ S°POEMS Et 
 
 A HYMN OF THE SEA 
 
 The sea is mighty, but a mightier sways 
 
 His restless billows. ‘Thou whose hands have 
 scooped 
 
 His boundless gulfs and built his shore, thy 
 breath, 
 
 That moved in the beginning o’er his face, 
 
 Moves o’er it evermore. The obedient waves 
 
 To its strong motion roll, and rise and fall. 
 
 Still from that realm of rain thy cloud goes up, 
 
 As at the first, to water the great earth, | 
 
 And keep her valleys green. A hundred realms 
 
 Watch its broad shadow warping on the wind, 
 
 And in the dropping shower, with gladness hear 
 
 Thy promise of the harvest. I look forth 
 
 Over the boundless blue, where joyously 
 
 The bright crests of innumerable waves 
 
 Glance to the sun at once, as when the hands 
 
 Of a great multitude are upward flung 
 
 In acclamation. I behold the ships 
 
 Gliding from cape to cape, from isle to isle, 
 
 Or stemming toward far lands, or hastening 
 home 
 
 From the Old World. It isthy friendly breeze 
 
 That bears them, with the riches of the land, 
 
 And treasure of dear lives, till, in the port, 
 
 The shouting seaman climbs and furls the 
 sail. 
 
112 BRYANT’S POEMS | 
 
 But who shall bide thy tempest, who shall 
 
 face 
 
 The blast that wakes the fury of the sea? 
 
 Oh God! thy justice makes the world turn pale, 
 
 When on the armed fleet, that royally 
 
 Bears down the surges, carrying war, to smite 
 
 Some city, or invade soine thoughtless realm, 
 
 Descends the fierce tornado. The vast hulks 
 
 Are whirled like chaff upon the waves; the sails 
 
 Fly, rent like webs of gossamer; the masts 
 
 Are snapped asunder; downward from the 
 decks, 
 
 Downward are slung, into the fathomless gulf, 
 
 Their cruel engines; and their hosts, arrayed 
 
 In trappings of the battle-field, are whelmed 
 
 By whirlpools, or dashed dead upon the rocks. 
 
 Then stand the nations still with awe, and 
 pause, 
 
 A moment, from the bloody work of war. 
 
 These restless surges eat away the shores 
 Of earth’s old continents; the fertile plain 
 Welters in shallows, headlands crumble down, 
 And the tide drifts the sea-sand in the streets 
 Of the drowned city. Thou, meanwhile, afar 
 In the green chambers of the middle sea, 
 Where broadest spread the waters and the line 
 Sinks deepest, while no eye beholds thy work, 
 Creator! thou dost teach the coral worm 
 To lay his mighty reefs. From age to age, 
 He builds beneath the waters, till, at last, 
 
 His bulwarks overtop the brine, and check 
 The long wave rolling from the southern pole 
 To break’ upon Japan... Thou bid’st the fires, 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 113 
 
 That smoulder under ocean, heave on high 
 
 The new-made mountains, and uplift their 
 peaks, 
 
 A place of refuge for the storm-driven bird. 
 
 The birds and wafting billows plant the rifts 
 
 With herb and tree; sweet fountains gush; 
 sweet airs 
 
 Ripple the living lakes that, fringed with 
 flowers, 
 
 Are gathered in the hollows. Thou dost look 
 
 -On thy creation and pronounce it good. 
 
 Its valleys, glorious with their summer green, 
 
 Praise thee in silent beauty, and its woods, 
 
 Swept by the murmuring winds of ocean, join 
 
 The murmuring shores in a perpetual hymn. 
 
 
 
 THE STREAM OF LIFE 
 
 Oh silvery streamlet of the fields, 
 That flowest full and free! 
 
 For thee the rains of spring return, 
 The summer dews for thee; 
 
 And when thy latest blossoms die 
 In autumn ’s chilly showers, 
 
 The winter fountains gush for thee, 
 Till May brings back the flowers. 
 
 Oh Stream of Life! the violet springs 
 But once beside thy bed; 
 
 But one brief summer, on thy path, 
 The dews of heaven are shed. 
 
 Thy parent fountains shrink away, 
 And close their crystal veins, 
 
 And where thy glittering current flowed 
 The dust alone remains. 
 
 8 Bryant’s ° 
 
114 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 MIDSUMMER 
 (A SONNET) 
 
 A power is on the earth and in the air, 
 From which the vital spirit shrinks afraid, 
 And shelters him, in nooks of deepest shade, 
 
 From the hot stream and from the fiery glare. 
 
 Look forth upon the earth—her thousand plants 
 Are smitten; even the dark sun-loving maize 
 Faints in the field beneath the torrid blaze; 
 
 The herd beside the shaded fountain pants; 
 
 For life is driven from all the landscape brown; 
 The bird has sought his tree, the snake his den, 
 The trout floats deadin the hot stream, and 
 
 men 
 
 Drop by the sun-stroke in the populace town: 
 As if the Day of Fire had dawned, and sent 
 Its deadly breath into the firmament. 
 
 
 
 GREEN RIVER 
 
 When breezes are soft and skies are fair, 
 I steal an hour from study and care, 
 And hie me away to the woodland scene, 
 Where wanders the stream with waters of 
 
 green. 
 
 As if the bright fringe of herbs on its brink 
 Had given their stain to the wave they drink; 
 And they, whose meadows it murmurs through, 
 Have named the stream from its own fair hue. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 115 
 
 Yet pure its waters—its shallows are bright 
 With coloured pebbles and sparkles of light, 
 And clear the depths where its eddies play, 
 And dimples deepen and whirl away, 
 
 And the plane-tree’s speckled arms o’ershoot 
 
 The swifter current that mines its root, 
 
 Through whose shifting leaves, as you walk 
 the hill, 
 
 The quivering glimmer of sun and rill 
 
 With a sudden flash on the eye is thrown, 
 
 Like the ray that streams from the diamond 
 stone. 
 
 Oh, loveliest there the spring days come, 
 
 With blossoms, and birds, and wild bees: 
 hum; 
 
 The flowers of summer are fairest there, 
 
 And freshest the breath of the summer air; 
 
 And sweetest the golden autumn day 
 
 In silence and sunshine glides away. 
 
 Yet fair as thou art, thou shunnest to glide, 
 Beautiful stream! by the village side; 
 But windest away from haunts of men, 
 To quiet valley and shaded glen; 
 And forest, and meadow, and slope of hill, 
 Around thee, are lonely, lovely, and still. 
 Lonely—save when, by thy rippling tides, 
 From thicket to thicket the angler glides; 
 Or the simpler comes with basket and book, 
 For herbs of power on thy banks to look; 
 Or haply, some idle dreamer, like me, 
 To wander, and muse, and gaze on thee. 
 Still—save the chirp of birds that feed 
 On the river cherry and seedy reed, 
 
116 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 And thy own wild music gushing out 
 With mellow murmur and fairy shout, 
 From dawn to the blush of another day, 
 Like traveller singing along his way. 
 
 That fairy music I never hear, 
 Nor gaze on those waters so green and clear, 
 And mark them winding away from sight, 
 Darkened with shade or flashing with light, 
 While o’er them the vine to its thicket clings, 
 And the zephyr stoops to freshen his wings, 
 But I wish that fate had left me free 
 To wander these quiet haunts with thee; 
 Till the eating cares of earth should depart, 
 And the peace of the scene passinto my heart; 
 And I envy thy stream, as it glides along, 
 Through its beautiful banks in a trance of song. 
 
 Though forced to drudge for the dregs of 
 
 men, 
 
 And scrawl strange words with the barbarous 
 pen, 
 
 And mingle among the jostling crowd, 
 
 Where the sons of strife are subtle and loud— 
 
 I often come to this quiet place, 
 
 To breathe the airs that ruffle thy face, 
 
 And gaze upon thee in silent dream, 
 
 For in thy lonely and lovely stream 
 
 An image of that calm life appears 
 
 that won my heart in my greener years. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 117 
 
 A WINTER PIECE 
 
 The time has been that these wild solitudes, 
 Yet beautiful as wild, were trod by me 
 Oftener than now; and when the ills of life 
 Had chafed my spirit—when the unsteady 
 pulse 
 
 Beat with strange flutterings—I would wander 
 forth 
 
 And seek the woods. The sunshine on my path 
 
 Was tomeasa friend. The swelling hills, 
 
 The quiet dells retiring far between, 
 
 With gentle invitation to explore 
 
 Their windings, were a calm society 
 
 That talked with me and soothed me. Then 
 the chant 
 
 Of birds, and chime of brooks, and soft caress 
 
 Of the fresh sylvan air, made me forget 
 
 The thoughts that broke my peace, and I began 
 
 To gather simples by the fountain’s brink, 
 
 And lose myself in day-dreams. WhileI stood 
 
 In nature’s loneliness, I was with one 
 
 With whom I early grew familiar, one 
 
 Who never had a frown for me, whose voice 
 
 Never rebuked me for the hours I stole 
 
 From cares I loved not, but of which the world 
 
 Deems highest, to converse with her. When 
 shrieked 
 
 The bleak November winds, and smote the 
 woods, 
 
118 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 And the brown fields were herbless, and the 
 shades, 
 
 ‘That met above the merry rivulet, 
 
 Were spoiled, I sought, I loved them still, — 
 they seemed iets 
 
 Like old companions in adversity. 
 
 Still there was beauty in my walks; the brook, 
 
 Bordered with sparkling frost-work, was as gay 
 
 As with its fringe of summer flowers. Afar, 
 
 The village with its spires, the path of streams, 
 
 And dim receding valleys, hid before 
 
 By interposing trees, lay visible 
 
 Through the bare grove, and my familiar 
 haunts 
 
 Seemed new to me. Nor was 1 slow to come 
 
 Among them, when the clouds, from their still 
 skirts, 
 
 Had shaken down on earth the feathery snow, 
 
 And all was white. The pure keen air abroad, 
 
 Albeit it breathed no scent of herb, nor heard 
 
 Love-call of bird nor merry hum of bee, 
 
 Was not the air of death. Bright mosses crept 
 
 Over the spotted trunks, and the close buds, 
 
 That lay along the boughs, instinct with life, 
 
 Patient and waiting the soft breath of Spring, 
 
 Feared not the piercing spirit of the North. 
 
 Thesnow-bird twittered on the beechen bough, 
 
 And ’neath the hemlock, whose thick branches 
 bent 
 
 Beneath its bright cold burden, and kept dry 
 
 A circle, on the earth, of withered leaves, 
 
 The partridge found a shelter. Through the 
 snow 
 
 The rabbit sprang away. The lighter track 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 119 
 
 Of fox, and the racoon’s broad path, were 
 there, 
 
 Crossing each other. From his hollow tree, 
 
 The squirrel was abroad, gathering the nuts 
 
 Just fallen, that asked the winter coldand sway 
 
 Of winter blast, to shake them from their hold. 
 
 But Winter has yet brighter scenes,—he 
 
 boasts 
 
 Splendours beyond what gorgeous Summer 
 knows; } 
 
 Or Autumn with his many fruits, and woods 
 
 All flushed with many hues. Come when the 
 rains 
 
 Have glazed the snow, and clothed the trees 
 with ice; 
 
 While the slant sun of February pours 
 
 Into the bowers a flood of light. Approach! 
 
 The incrusted surface shall upbear thy steps, 
 
 And the broad arching portals of the grove 
 
 Welcome thy entering. Look! the massy trunks 
 
 Are cased in the pure crystal; each light spray, 
 
 Nodding and tinkling in the breath of heaven, 
 
 Is studded with its trembling water-drops, 
 
 That stream with rainbow radiance as they 
 move. 
 
 Butround the parent stem the long low boughs 
 
 Bend, in a glittering ring, and arbours hide 
 
 The glassy floor, Oh! you might deem the 
 spot 
 
 The spacious cavern of some virgin mine, 
 
 Deep in the womb of earth—where the gems 
 grow, 
 
 And diamonds put forth radiant rods and bud 
 
120 BRYANT'S POEMS 
 
 With amethyst and topaz—and the place 
 
 Lit up, most royally, with the pure beam 
 
 That dwells in them. Or haply the vast hall 
 
 Of fairy palace, that outlasts the night, 
 
 And fades not in the glory of the sun ;— 
 
 Where crystal columns send forth slender 
 shafts 
 
 And crossing arches; and fantastic aisles 
 
 Wind from the sight in brightness, and are lost 
 
 Among the crowded pillars. Raise thine eye,— 
 
 Thou seest no cavern roof, no palace vault; 
 
 There the blue sky and the white drifting cloud 
 
 Look in. Again the wildered fancy dreams 
 
 Of spouting fountains, frozen as they rose, 
 
 And fixed, with all their branching jets, in air, 
 
 And all the sluices sealed. All, all is light; 
 
 Light without shade. But all shall pass away 
 
 With the next sun. From numberless vast 
 trunks, 
 
 Loosened, the crashing ice shall make a sound 
 
 Like the far roar of rivers, and the eve 
 
 Shall close o’er the brown woodsas it was wont. 
 
 And it is pleasant, when the noisy streams 
 Are just set free, and milder suns melt off 
 The plashy snow, save only the firm drift 
 In the deep glen or the close shade of pines,— 
 ‘Tis pleasant to behold the wreaths of smoke 
 Roll up among the maples of the hill, 
 
 Where theshrill sound of youthful voices wakes 
 
 The shriller echo, as the clear pure lymph, 
 
 That from the wounded trees, in twinkling 
 drops, 
 
 Falls, mid the golden brightness of the morn, 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS . 121 
 
 {s gathered in with brimming pails, and oft, 
 Wielded by sturdy hands, the stroke of axe 
 Makes the woods ring. Along the quiet air, 
 Come and float calmly off the soft light clouds, 
 Such as you see in summer, and the winds 
 Scarce stirthe branches. Lodgedinsunny cleft, 
 Where the cold breezes come not, blooms alone 
 The little windflower, whose just opened eye 
 Is blue as the spring heaven it gazes at— 
 Startling the loiterer in the naked groves 
 With unexpected beauty, for the time 
 Of blossoms and green leaves is yet afar. 
 And ere it comes, the encountering winds shall 
 oft 
 Muster their wrath again, and rapid clouds 
 Shade heaven, and bounding on the frozen 
 earth 
 Shall fall their volleyed stores rounded like hail, 
 And white like snow, and the loud North again 
 Shall buffet the vexed forest in his rage. 
 
 
 
 HYMN TO DEATH 
 
 Oh! could I hope the wise and pure in heart 
 Might hear my song without a frown, nor deem 
 My voice unworthy of the theme it tries, — 
 
 1 would take up the hymn to Death, and say 
 
 To the grim power, The world hath slandered 
 thee 
 
 And mocked thee. On thy dim and shadowy 
 brow 
 
 They place an iron crown, and call thee king 
 
 Of terrors, and the spoiler of the world, 
 
122 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Deadly assassin, that strik’st down the fair, 
 
 The loved, the good—that breathest on the 
 lights 
 
 Of virtue set along the vale of life, 
 
 And they go out in darkness. I am come, 
 
 Not with reproaches, not withcries and prayers, 
 
 Such as have stormed thy stern, insensible ear 
 
 From the beginning. I am come to speak 
 
 Thy praises. True it is, that 1 have wept 
 
 ‘Thy conquests, and may weep them yet again: 
 
 And thou from some I love wilt take a life 
 
 Dear tome asmy own. Yet while the spell 
 
 Is on my spirit, and I taik with thee 
 
 In sight of all thy trophies, face to face, 
 
 Meet is it that my voice should utter forth 
 
 Thy nobler triumphs; I will teach the world 
 
 To thank thee.—Who are thine accusers?— 
 Who? 
 
 The living!—they who never felt thy power, » 
 
 And know thee not. The curses of the wretch 
 
 Whose crimes are ripe, his sufferings when thy 
 hand | 
 
 Is on him, and the hour he dreads is come, 
 
 Are writ among thy praises. But the good— 
 
 Does he whom thy kind hand dismissed to 
 peace, 
 
 Upbraid the gentle violence that took off 
 
 His fetters, and unbarred his prison cell? 
 
 Raise then the hymn to death. Detiverer! 
 God hath anointed thee to free the oppressed 
 Anu ctush the oppressor. When the armed 
 
 chief, 
 The conqueror of nations, walks the world, 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 123 
 
 And it is changed beneath his feet, and all 
 Its kingdoms melt into one mighty realm— 
 Thou, while his head is loftiest and his heart 
 Blasphemes, imagining his own right hand 
 Almighty, thou dost set thy sudden grasp 
 Upon him, and the links of that strong chain 
 That bound mankind are crumbled; thou dost 
 break 
 Sceptre and crown, and beat his throne to dust. 
 Then the earth shouts with gladness, and her 
 tribes 
 Gather within their ancient bounds again. 
 Else had the mighty of the olden time, 
 Nimrod, Sesostris, or the youth who feigned 
 His birth from Libyan Ammon, smitten yet 
 The nations with a rod of iron, and driven 
 Their chariot o’er our necks. Thou dost 
 avenge, 
 In thy good time, the wrongs of those who know 
 No other friend. Nor dost thou interpose 
 Only to lay the sufferer asleep, 
 Where he who made him wretched troubles not 
 His rest—thou dost strike down his tyrant too. 
 Oh, there is joy when hands that held the 
 scourge 
 Drop lifeless, and the pitiless heart is cold 
 Thou too dost purge from earth its horrible 
 And old idolatries ;—from the proud fanes 
 Each to his grave their priests go out, till none 
 Is left to teach their worship; then the fires 
 Of sacrifice are chilled, and the green moss 
 O’ercreeps their altars; the fallen images 
 Cumber the weedy courts, and for loud hymns 
 Chanted by kneeling multitudes, the wind 
 
124 BRYANT’S .POEMS 
 
 Shrieks in the solitary aisles. When he ; 
 Who gives his life to guilt, and laughs at all 
 The laws that God or man has made, and round 
 Hedges his seat with power, and shines in 
 wealth,— | 
 Lifts up his atheist front to scoff at Heaven, 
 And celebrates his shame in open day, 
 Thou, in the pride of all his crimes, cutt’st off 
 The horrible example. Touched by thine, 
 The extortioner’s hard hand foregoes the gold 
 Wrung froin the .o’er-worn poor. The perjurer, 
 Whose tongue was lithe, e’en now, and voluble 
 Against his neighbour’s life, and he who 
 laughed 
 And leaped for joy to see a spotless fame 
 Blasted before his own foul calumnies, 
 Are smit with deadly silence. He, who sold 
 His conscience to preserve a worthless life, 
 Even while he hugs himself on his escape, 
 Trembles, as, doubly terrible, at length, 
 Thy steps o’ertake him, and there is no time 
 For parley—nor will bribes unclench thy grasp. 
 Oft, too, dost thou reform thy victim, long 
 Ere his last hour. And when the reveller, 
 Mad in the chase of pleasure, stretches on, 
 And strains each nerve, and clears the path of 
 Hite 
 Like wind, thou point’st him to the dreadful 
 goal, 
 And shak'st thy hour-glass in his reeling-eye, 
 Ani check’st him in mid course. Thy skele- ~ 
 ton hand 
 Shows to the faint of spirit the right path, 
 And he is warned, and fears to step aside. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 125 
 
 Thou sett’st between the ruffian and his crime 
 
 Thy ghastly countenance, and his slack hand 
 
 Drops the drawn knife. But, oh, most fearfully 
 
 Dost thou show forth Heaven’s justice, when 
 thy shafts 
 
 Drink up the ebbing spirit—then the hard 
 
 Of heart and violent of hand restores 
 
 The treasure to the friendless wretch he 
 wronged. 
 
 Then from the writhing bosom thou dost pluck 
 
 The guilty secret; lips, for ages sealed, 
 
 Are faithless to the dreadful trust at length, 
 
 And give it up; the felon’s latest breath 
 
 Absolves the innocent man who bears his 
 crime; 
 
 The slanderer, horror-smitten, and in tears, 
 
 Recalls the deadly obloquy he forged 
 
 To work his brother’s ruin. Thou dost make 
 
 Thy penitent victim utter to the air 
 
 The dark conspiracy that strikes at life, 
 
 And aims to whelm the laws; ere yet the hour 
 
 Is come, and the dread sign of murder given. 
 
 Thus, from the first of time, hast thou been 
 
 found 
 
 On virtue’s side! the wicked, but for thee, 
 
 Had been too strong for the good; the great of 
 earth 
 
 Had crushed the weak for ever. Schooled in 
 cuile 
 
 For ages, while each passing year had brought 
 
 Its baneful lesson, they had filled the world 
 
 With their abominations; while its tribes, 
 
 Trodden to earth, imbruted, and despoiled, 
 
126 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Had knelt to them in worship; sacrifice 
 
 Had smoked on many an altar, temple roofs 
 
 Had echoed with the blasphemous prayer and 
 hymn: 
 
 But thou, the great reformer of the world, 
 
 Tak’st off the sons of violence and fraud 
 
 In their green pupilage, their lore half learned— 
 
 Ere guilt had quite o’errun the simple heart 
 
 God gave them at their birth, and blotted out 
 
 Hisimage. Thou dost mark them flushed with 
 hope, 
 
 As on the threshold of their vast designs 
 
 Doubtful and loose they stand, and strik’st them 
 down. 
 
 * * * XK * 
 
 Alas! I little thought that the stern power 
 Whose fearful praise I sung, would try me thus 
 Before the strain was ended. It must cease— 
 For he is in his grave who taught my youth 
 The art of verse, and in the bud of life 
 Offered me to the muses. Oh, cut off 
 Untimely! when thy reason in its strength, 
 Ripened by years of toil and studious search, 
 And watch of Nature’s silent lessons, taught 
 Thy hand to practice best the lenient art, 
 
 To which thou gavest thy laborious days, 
 
 And, last, thy life. And, therefore, when the 
 earth 
 
 Received thee, tears were in unyielding eyes 
 
 And on hard cheeks, and they who deemed 
 thy skill 
 
 Delayed their death-hour, shuddered and 
 turned pale 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 127 
 
 When thor wert sone. This faltering verse, 
 which thou 
 
 Shalt not, as wont, o’erlook, is all I have 
 
 To offer at thy grave—this—and the hope 
 
 To copy thy example, and to leave 
 
 A name of which the wretched shall not think 
 
 As of an enemy’s, whom they forgive 
 
 As allforgive the dead. Rest, therefore, thou 
 
 Whose early guidance trained my infant steps— 
 
 Rest, in the bosom of God, till the brief sleep 
 
 Of death is over, and a happier life 
 
 Shall dawn to waken thine insensible dust. 
 
 Now thou art not—and yet the men whose 
 
 guilt 
 
 Has wearied Heaven for vengeance—he who 
 bears 
 
 False witness—he who takes the orphan’s 
 bread, 
 
 And robs the widow—he who spreads abroad 
 
 Polluted hands of mockery of prayer, 
 
 Are left to cumber earth. Shuddering I look 
 
 On what is written, yet I blot not out 
 
 The desultory numbers—let them stand, 
 
 The record of an idle revery. 
 
 LINES ON REVISITING THE COUNTRY 
 
 I stand upon my native hills again, 
 Broad, round, and green, that in the summer 
 sky | 
 With garniture of waving grass and grain, 
 Orchards, and beechen forests, basking lie, 
 
128 RRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 While deep the sunless glens are scooped be- 
 tween, 
 
 Where brawl o’er shallow beds the streams 
 unseen, 
 
 A lisping voice and glancing eyes are near, 
 And ever restless feet of one, who, now, 
 Gathers the blossoms of her fourth bright year; 
 There plays a gladness o’er her fair young 
 brow, 
 As breaks the varied scene upon her sight, 
 Upheaved and spread in verdure and in light. 
 
 For I have taught her, with delighted eye, 
 
 To gaze upon the mountains,—to behold, 
 With deep affection, the pure ample sky, 
 
 And clouds along its blue abysses rolled,— 
 To love the song of waters, and to hear 
 The melody of winds with charmed ear. 
 
 Here, I have ’scaped the city’s stifling heat, 
 Its horrid sounds, and its polluted air; 
 
 And, where the season’s milder fervours beat, 
 And gales, that sweep the forest borders, bear 
 
 The song of bird, and sound of running stream, 
 
 Am come awhile to wander and to dream. 
 
 Ay, flame thy fiercest, sun! thou canst not 
 wake, 
 In this pure air the plague that walks unseen. 
 The maize leaf and the maple bough but take, 
 From thy strong heats, a deeper, glossier 
 green. 
 The mountain wind, that faints not in thy ray 
 Sweeps the blue streams of pestilence away. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 129 
 
 The mountain wind! most spiritual thing of ail 
 The wide earth knows; when, in the sultry 
 time, 
 He stoops him from his vast cerulean hall, 
 He seems the breath of a celestial clime! 
 Asif from heaven’s wide-open gates did flow 
 Health and refreshment on the world below. 
 
 
 
 Peeve cre: MOUNTAIN’S DISTANT 
 HEAD” 
 
 Upon the mountain’s distant head, 
 With trackless snows for ever white, 
 
 Where all is still, and cold, and dead, 
 Late shines the day’s departing light. 
 
 But far below those icy rocks, 
 The vales, in summer bloom arrayed, 
 Woods full of birds, and fields of flocks, 
 Are dim with mist and dark with shade. 
 
 ’Tis thus, from warm and kindly hearts, 
 And eyes where generous meanings burn, 
 Earliest the light of life departs, 
 But lingers with the cold and stern. 
 
 
 
 THE.JOURNEY OF LIFE 
 
 Beneath the waning moon I walk at night, 
 And muse on human life—for all around 
 Are dim uncertain shapes that cheat the sight, 
 And pitfalls lurk in shade along the ground, 
 And broken gleamsof brightness here and there 
 Glance through, and leave unwarmed the death- 
 like air. 
 9 Bryant’s 
 
130 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 The trampled earth returns a sound of fear— 
 A hollow sound, as if I walked on tombs; 
 And lights, that tell of cheerful homes, appear 
 
 Far off, and die like hope amid the glooms. 
 A mournful wind across the landscape flies, 
 And the wide atmosphere is fuil of sighs. 
 
 And I, with faltering footsteps, journey on, 
 Watching the stars that roll the hours away, 
 Till the faint light that guides me now is gone, 
 And, like another life, the glorious day 
 Shall open o’er me from the empyreal height, 
 Witi warmth, and certainty, and boundless 
 light, 
 
 ——___—___—, 
 
 LOVE AND FOLL® 
 (FROM LA FONTAINE) 
 
 Love’s worshippers alone can know 
 The thousand mysteries that are his; 
 
 His blazing torch, his twanging bow, 
 His blooming age are mysteries. 
 
 A charming science—but the day 
 Were all too short to con it o’er; 
 
 So take of me this little lay, 
 A sample of its boundless lore. 
 
 As once, beneath the fragrant shade 
 Of myrtles breathing heaven’s own air, 
 The children, Love and Folly, played— 
 A quarrel rose betwixt the pair. 
 Love said the gods should do him right— 
 But Folly vowed to do it then, 
 And struck him, o’er the orbs of sight, 
 So hard he never saw again. 
 
BRYANT’S POBMS |\) (| |) \a3h- 
 
 His lovely mother’s grief was deep, 
 She called for vengeance on the deed; 
 A beauty does not vainly weep, 
 Nor coldly does a mother plead. 
 A shade came o’er the eternal bliss 
 That fills the dwellers of the skies; 
 Even stony-hearted Nemesis, 
 And Rhadamanthus, wiped their eyes. 
 
 **Behold,’’ she said, ‘‘this lovely boy,’’ 
 While streamed afresh her graceful tears, 
 ‘‘Immortal, yet shut out from joy 
 And sunshine, all his future years. 
 The child can never take, you see, 
 A single step without a staff— 
 The harshest punishment would be 
 Too lenient for the crime by half.’’ 
 
 All said that Love had suffered wrong, 
 And well that wrong should be repa 
 Then weighed the public interest long, 
 And long the party’s interest weighed. 
 And thus decreed the court above— 
 ‘Since Love is blind from Folly’s blow, 
 Let Folly be the guide of Love, 
 Where’er the boy may choose to go.”’ 
 
 d: 
 
 ks 
 
132 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 THE LOVE OF GOR 
 (FROM THE PROVENCAL OF BERNARD. RASCAS) 
 
 All things that are on earth shall wholly pass 
 
 away, 
 
 Except the love of God, which shall live and 
 last for aye. 
 
 The forms of men shall be as they had never 
 been; 
 
 The blasted groves shall lose their fresh and 
 tender green; 
 
 The birds of the thicket shall end their pleas- 
 ant song, 
 
 And the nightingale shall cease to chant the 
 evening long. 
 
 The kine of the pasture shall feel the dart that 
 kills, 
 
 And all the fair white flocks shall perish from 
 the hills. 
 
 The goat and antlered stag, the wolf and the 
 fox, 
 
 The wild boar of the wood, and the chamois of 
 the rocks, 
 
 And the strong and fearless bear, in the trod- 
 den dust shall lie; 
 
 And the dolphin of the sea, and the mighty 
 whale, shall die. 
 
 And realms shall be dissolved, and empires be 
 no more, 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 133 
 
 And they shall bow to death, who ruled from 
 shore to shore; 
 
 And the great globe itself (sothe holy writings 
 tell), 
 
 With the rolling firmament, where the starry 
 armies dwell, 
 
 Shall melt with fervent heat—they shall all 
 pass way, 
 
 Except the love of God, which shall live and 
 last for aye. 
 
 EARTH 
 
 A midnight black with clouds is in the sky; 
 
 I seem to feel, upon my limbs, the weight 
 
 Of its vast brooding shadow. Allin vain 
 
 Turns the tired eye in search of form; no star 
 
 Pierces the pitchy veil; no ruddy blaze, 
 
 From dwellings lighted by the cheerful hearth, 
 
 Tinges the flowering summits of the grass. 
 
 No sound of life is heard, no village hum, 
 
 Nor measured tramp of footstep in the path, 
 
 Nor rush of wing, while, on the breast of 
 Earth, 
 
 I lie and listen to her mighty voice: 
 
 A voice of many tones—sent up from streams 
 
 That wander through the gloom, from woods 
 unseen, 
 
 Swayed by the sweeping of the tides of air, 
 
 From rocky chasms where darkness dwells all 
 day, 
 
 And hollows of the great invisible hills, 
 
 And sands that edge the ocean, stretching far 
 
 Into the night—a melancholy sound! 
 
134 ' | BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 O Earth! dost thou too sorrow for the past 
 Like man thy offspring? Do 1 hear thee mourn 
 Thy childhood’s unreturning hours, thy springs 
 Gone with their genial airs and melodies, 
 
 The gentle generations of thy flowers, 
 
 And thy majestic groves of olden time, 
 
 Perished with all their dwellers? Dost thou 
 wail 
 
 For that fair age of which the poets tell, 
 
 Ere the rude winds grew keen with frost, or fire 
 
 Fell with the rains, or spouted from the hills, 
 
 To blast thy greenness, while the virgin night 
 
 Was guiltless and salubrious as the day? 
 
 Or haply dost thou grieve for those that die— 
 
 For living things that trod thy paths awhile, 
 
 The love of thee and heaven—and now they 
 slee 
 
 Mixed with the shapeless dust on which thy 
 herds 
 
 Trample and graze? 1 too must grieve with 
 thee, 
 
 O’er loved ones Jost. Their graves are faraway 
 
 Upon thy mountains; yet, while I recline 
 
 Alone, in darkness, on thy naked soil, 
 
 The mighty nourisher and burial-place 
 
 Of man, I feel that I embrace their dust. 
 
 Ha! how the murmur deepens! I perceive 
 And tremble at its dreadful import. Earth 
 Uplifts a general cry for guilt and wrong, 
 And heaven is listening. The forgotten graves 
 Of the heart-broken utter forth their plaint. 
 The dust of her who loved and was betrayed, 
 And him who died neglected in his age; 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 135 
 
 The sepulchres of those who for mankind 
 
 Laboured, and earned the recompense of scorn; 
 
 Ashes of martyrs for the truth, and bones 
 
 Of those who, in the strife for liberty, 
 
 Were beaten down, their corses given to dogs, 
 
 Their names to infamy, all find a voice. 
 
 The nook in which the captive, overtoiled, 
 
 Lay down to rest at last, and that which holds 
 
 Childhood’s sweet blossoms, crushed by cruel 
 hands, 
 
 Send upaplaintivesound. From battle-fields. 
 
 Where heroes madly drave and dashed thei 
 hosts 
 
 Against each other, rises up a noise, 
 
 As if the armed multitudes of dead 
 
 Stirredin their heavy slumber. Mournful tones 
 
 Come from the green abysses of the sea— 
 
 A story of the crimes the guilty sought 
 
 To hide beneath its waves. The glens, the 
 groves, 
 
 Paths in the thicket, pools of running brook, 
 
 And banks and depths of lake, and streets and 
 lanes 
 
 Of cities, now that living sounds are hushed, 
 
 Murmur of guilty force and treachery. 
 
 Here, where | rest, the vales of Italy 
 Are round me, populous from early time, 
 And field of the tremendous warfare waged 
 “Twixt good and evil. Who, alas, shall dare 
 Interpret to man’s ear the mingled voice 
 That comes from her old dungeons yawnixs, 
 
 now 
 
 To the black air, her amphitheatres, 
 
136 ) | {BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Where the dew gathers on the mouldering 
 stones, 
 
 And fanes of banished gods, and open tombs, 
 
 And roofless palaces, and streets and hearths 
 
 Of cities dug from their volcanic graves? 
 
 I hear a sound of many languages, 
 
 The utterance of nations now no more, 
 
 Driven out by mightier, as the days of heaven 
 
 Chase one another from the sky. The blood 
 
 Of freemen shed by freemen, till strange lords 
 
 Came in the hour of weakness, and made fast 
 
 The yoke that yet is worn, cries out to Heaven. 
 
 What then shall cleanse thy bosom, gentle 
 
 Earth, 
 
 From all its painful memories of guilt? 
 
 The whelming flood, or the renewing fire, 
 
 Or the slow change of time? that so, at last, © 
 
 The horrid tale of perjury and strife, 
 
 Murder and spoil, which men call history, 
 
 May seem a fable, like the inventions told 
 
 By poets of the gods of Greece. O thou, 
 
 Who sittest far beyond the Atlantic deep, 
 
 Among the sources of thy glorious streams, 
 
 My native Land of Groves! a newer page 
 
 .In the great record of the world is thine; 
 
 Shall it be fairer? Fear, and friendly hope, 
 
 And envy, watch the issue, while the lines, 
 
 By which thou shalt be judged, are written 
 down. 
 
 > 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 137 
 
 § 
 
 ~ 
 
 CATTERSKILL FALLS 
 
 Midst greens and shades the Catterskill leaps, 
 From cliffs where the wood-flower clings; 
 All summer he moistens his verdant steeps 
 With the sweet light spray of the mountain 
 springs; 
 And he shakes the woods on the mountain side, 
 When they drip with the rains of autumn-tide. 
 
 But when, in the forest bare and old, 
 The blast of December calls, 
 
 He builds, in the starlight clear and cold, 
 A palace of ice where his torrent falls, 
 
 With turret, and arch, and fretwork fair, 
 
 And pillars blue as the summer air. 
 
 For whom are those glorious chambers wrought, 
 In the cold and cloudless night? 
 
 Is there neither spirit nor motion of thought 
 In forms so lovely, and hues so bright? 
 
 Hear what the gray-haired woodmen tell 
 
 ‘Of this wild stream and its rocky dell. 
 
 ’T was hither a youth of dreamy rood, 
 A hundred winters ago, 
 Had wandered over the mighty wood, 
 When the panther’s track was fresh on the 
 snow, 
 And keen were the winds that came to stir 
 The long dark boughs of the hemlock fir. 
 
138 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Too gentle of mien he seemed and fair, 
 For achild of those rugged steeps; 
 His home lay low in the valley where 
 The kingly Hudson rolls to the deeps; 
 But he wore the hunter’s frock that day, 
 And a slender gun on his shoulder lay. 
 
 And here he paused, and against the trunk 
 Of a tall gray linden leant, 
 
 When the broad clear orb of the sun had sunk 
 From his path in the frosty firmament, 
 
 And over the round dark edge of the hill 
 
 A cold green light was quivering still. 
 
 And the crescent moon, high over the green, 
 From a sky of crimson shone, 
 
 On that icy palace, whose towers were seen 
 To sparkle as if with stars of their own; 
 
 While the water fell with a hollow sound, 
 
 ’Twixt the glistening pillars ranged around. 
 
 Is that a being of life, that moves 
 
 Where the crystal battlements rise? 
 A maiden watching the moon she loves, 
 
 At the twilight hour, with pensive eyes? 
 Was that a garment which seemed to gleam 
 Betwixt the eye and the falling stream? 
 
 "Tis only the torrent tumbling o’er, 
 In the midst of those glassy walls, 
 Gushing, and plunging, and beating the floor 
 Of the rocky basin in which it falls. . 
 "Tis only the torrent—but why that start? 
 Why gazes the youth with a throbbing heart? 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 139 
 
 He thinks no more of his home afar, 
 Where his sire and sister wait. 
 He heeds no longer how star after star 
 Looks forth on the night as the hour grows 
 late. 
 He heeds not the snow-wreaths, lifted and cast 
 From a thousand boughs, by the rising blast. 
 
 His thoughts are alone of those who dwell 
 In the halls of frost and snow, 
 Who pass where the crystal domes upswell 
 From the alabaster floors below, 
 Where the frost-trees shoot with leaf and spray, 
 And frost-gems scatter a silvery day. 
 
 **And oh that those glorious haunts were mine!”’ 
 He speaks, and throughout the glen 
 
 Thin shadows swim in the faint moonshine, 
 And take a ghastly likeness of men, 
 
 As if the slain by the wintry storms 
 
 Came forth to the air in their earthly forms. 
 
 There pass the chasers of seal and whale, 
 With their weapons quaint and grim, 
 And bands of warriors in glittering mail, 
 And herdsmen and hunters huge of limb. 
 There are naked arms, with bow and spear, 
 And furry gauntlets the carbine rear. 
 
 There are mothers—and oh how sadly theireyes 
 On their children’s white brows rest! 
 There are youthful lovers—the maiden lies, 
 In a seeming sleep, on the chosen breast; 
 There are fair wan women with moonstruck air, 
 The snow stars flecking their long loose hair, 
 
140 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 They eye him not as they pass along, 
 But his hair stands up with dread, 
 When he feels that he moves with that phan- 
 tom throng, 
 Till those icy turrets are over his head, 
 And the torrent’s roar as they enter seems 
 Like a drowsy murmur heard in dreams. 
 
 The glittering threshold is scarcely passed, 
 When there gathers and wraps him round 
 A thick white twilight, sullen and vast, 
 In which there is neither form nor sound; 
 The phantoms, the glory, vanish all, 
 With the dying voice of the waterfall. 
 
 Slow passes the darkness of that trance, 
 And the youth now faintly sees 
 Huge shadows and gushes of light that dance 
 On a rugged ceiling of unhewn trees, 
 And walls where the skins of beasts are hung, 
 And rifles glitter on antlers strung. 
 
 On acouch of shaggy skins he lies; 
 As he strives to raise his head, 
 Hard-featured woodmen, with kindly eyes, 
 Come round him and smooth his furry bed, 
 And bid him rest, for the evening star 
 Is scarcely set and the day is far. 
 
 They had found at eve the dreaming one 
 By the base of that icy steep, 
 When over his stiffening limbs begun 
 The deadly slumber of frost to creep, 
 And they cherished the pale and breathless form, 
 Till the stagnant blood ran free and warm. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 141 
 
 LIFE 
 
 Oh Life! I breathe thee in the breeze, 
 I feel thee bounding in my veins, 
 I see thee in these stretching trees, 
 These flowers, this still rock’s mossy stains. 
 
 This stream of odors flowing by 
 
 From clover-field and clumps of pine, 
 This music, thrilling all the sky, 
 
 From all the morning birds, are thine. 
 
 Thou fill’st with joy this little one, 
 
 That leaps and shouts beside me here, 
 Where Isar’s clay-white rivulets run 
 
 Through the dark woods like frighted deer. 
 
 Ah! must thy mighty breath, that wakes 
 Insect and bird, and flower and tree, 
 
 From the low trodden dust, and makes 
 Their daily gladness, pass from me— 
 
 Pass, pulse by pulse, till o’er the ground 
 These limbs, now strong, shall creep with 
 pain, 
 And this fair world of sight and sound 
 Seem fading into night again? 
 
 The things, oh Life! thou quickenest, all 
 Strive upward toward the broad bright sky, 
 Upward and outward, and they fall 
 Back to earth’s bosom when they die. 
 
142 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 All that have borne the touch of death, 
 All that shall live, lie mingled there, 
 
 Beneath that veil of bloom and breath, 
 That living zone ’twixt earth and air. 
 
 There lies my chamber dark and still, 
 The atoms trampled by my feet, 
 There wait, to take the place I fill 
 In the sweet air and sunshine sweet. 
 
 Well, I have had my turn, have been 
 Raised from the darkness of the clod, 
 And for a glorious moment seen 
 The brightness of the skirts of God; 
 
 And knew the light within my breast, 
 Though wavering oftentimes and dim, 
 
 The power, the will, that never rest, 
 And cannot die, were all from him. 
 
 Dear child! I know that thou wilt grieve 
 To see me taken from thy love, 
 
 Wilt seek my grave at Sabbath eve, 
 And weep, and scatter flowers above, 
 
 Thy little heart will soon be healed, 
 And being shall be bliss, till thou 
 
 To younger forms of life must yield 
 The place thou fill’st with beauty now. 
 
 When we descend to dust again, 
 Where will the final dwelling be 
 
 Of Thought and all its memories then, 
 My love for thee, and thine for me? 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 143 
 
 THE FOUNTAIN 
 
 Fountain, that springest on this grassy slope, 
 Thy quick cool murmur mingles pleasantly, 
 With the coul sound of breezes in the beech, 
 Above me in the noontide. Thou dost wear 
 No stain of thy dark birthplace; gushing up 
 From the red mould and slimy roots of earth, 
 Thou flashest in the sun. The mountain air, 
 In winter, is not clearer, nor the dew 
 That shines on mountain blossom. Thus doth 
 
 God 
 Bring, from the dark and foul, the pure and 
 bright. 
 
 This tangled thicket on the bank above 
 Thy basin, how thy waters keep it green! 
 For thou dost feed the roots of the wild vine 
 That trails all over it, and to the twigs 
 Ties fast her clusters. There the spice-bush lifts 
 Her leafy lances; the viburnum there, 
 Paler of foliage, to the sun holds up 
 Her circlet of green berries. In and out 
 The chipping sparrow, in her coat of brown, 
 Steals silently, lest I should mark her nest. 
 
 Not such thou wert of yore, ere yet the axe © 
 Had smitten the old woods. Then hoary trunks 
 Of oak, and plane, and hickory, o’er thee held 
 A mighty canopy. When April winds 
 
144 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Grew soft, the maple burst into a flush 
 
 Of scarlet flowers. The tulip-tree, high up, 
 Opened, in airs of June, her multitude 
 
 Of golden chalices to humming-birds 
 
 And silken-winged insects of the sky. 
 
 Frail wood-plants clustered round thy edge 
 in Spring. 
 The liverleaf put forth her sister blooms 
 Of faintest blue. Here the quick-footed wolf, 
 Passing to lap thy waters, crushed the flower 
 Of sanguinaria, from whose brittle stem 
 The red drops fell like blood. The deer, too, 
 left 
 Her delicate foot-print in the soft moist mould, 
 And on the fallen leaves. The slow-paced bear, 
 In such a sultry summer noon as this, 
 Stopped at thy stream, and drank, and leaped 
 across. 
 
 But thou hast histories that stir the heart 
 With deeper. feeling; while I look on thee 
 They rise before me. I behold the scene 
 Hoary again with forests; 1 behold 
 The Indian warrior, whom a hand unseen 
 Has smitten with his death-wound in the 
 
 woods, 
 Creep slowly to thy well-known rivulet, 
 And slake his death-thirst. Hark, that quick 
 fierce cry 
 That rends the utter silence; ’tis the whoop 
 Of battle, and a throng of savage men 
 With naked arms and faces stained like blood, 
 Fill the green wilderness; the long bare arms 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 145 
 
 Are heaved aloft, bows twang and arrows 
 stream ; 
 
 Each makes a tree his shield, and every tree 
 
 Sends forth its arrow. Fierce the fight and 
 short, 
 
 As is the whirlwind. Soon the conquerors 
 
 And conquered vanish, and the dead remain, 
 
 Mangled by tomahawks. The mighty woods 
 
 Are still again, the frighted bird comes back 
 
 And plumes her wings; but thy sweet waters 
 run 
 
 Crimson with blood. Then, as the sun goes 
 down, 
 
 Amid the deepening twilight I descry 
 
 Figures of men that crouch and creep unheard, 
 
 And bear away the dead. The next day’s 
 shower 
 
 Shall wash the tokens of the fight away. 
 
 I look again—a hunter’s lodge is built, 
 With poles and boughs, beside thy crystal well, 
 While the meek autumn stains the woods with 
 gold, 
 And sheds his golden sunshine. To the door 
 The red man slowly drags the enormous bear 
 Slain in the chestnut thicket, or flings down 
 The deer from his strong shoulders. Shaggy 
 fells 
 Of wolf and cougar hang upon the walls, 
 And loud the black-eyed Indian maidens laugh, 
 That gather, from the rustling heaps of leaves, 
 The hickory’s white nuts, and the dark fruit 
 That falls from the gray butternut’s long 
 boughs, 
 
 10 Bryant’s 
 
146 BRYANT'S POEM: 
 
 So centuries passed by, and still the woods 
 
 Blossomed in spring, and reddened when the 
 year 
 
 Grew chill, and glistened in the frozen rains 
 
 Of winter, till the white man swung the axe 
 
 Beside thee—signal of a mighty change. 
 
 Then all around was heard the crash of trees, 
 
 Trembling awhile and rushing to the ground, 
 
 The low of ox, and shouts of men who fired 
 
 The brushwood, or who tore the earth with 
 ploughs. 
 
 The grain sprang thick and tall, and hid in 
 green 
 
 The blackened hill-side; ranks of spiky maize 
 
 Rose like a host embattled; the buckwheat 
 
 Whitened broad acres, sweetening with its 
 flowers 
 
 The August wind. White cottages were seen 
 
 With rose-trees at the windows; barns from 
 which 
 
 Came loud and shrill the crowing of the cock; 
 
 Pastures where rolled and neighed the lordly 
 horse, 
 
 And white flocks browsed and bleated. A rich 
 turf 
 
 Of grasses brought from far o’ercrept thy 
 bank, 
 
 Spotted ‘with the white clover. Blue-eyed 
 girls 
 
 Brought pails and dipped them in thy crystal 
 pool; 
 
 And children, ruddy-cheeked and flaxen- 
 haired, 
 
 Gathered the glistening cowslip from thy edge. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 147 
 
 since then, what steps have trod thy border! 
 
 Here 
 
 On thy green bank, the woodman of the swamp 
 
 Has laid his axe, the reaper of the hill 
 
 His sickle, as they stooped to taste thy stream. 
 
 The sportsman, tired with wandering in the 
 still 
 
 September noon, has bathed his heated brow 
 
 in thy cool current. Shouting boys, let loose 
 
 For a wild holiday, have quaintly shaped 
 
 Into a cup the folded linden leaf, 
 
 And dipped thy sliding crystal. From the wars 
 
 Returning, the plumed soldier by thy side 
 
 Has sat, and mused how pleasant ’twere to 
 dwell 
 
 In such a spot, and be as free as thou, 
 
 And move for no man’s bidding more. At eve, 
 
 When thou wert crimson with the crimson sky, 
 
 Lovers have gazed upon thee,and have thought 
 
 Their mingled lives should flow as peacefully 
 
 And brightly as thy waters. Here the sage, 
 
 Gazing into thy self-replenished depth, 
 
 Has seen eternal order circumscribe 
 
 And bind the motions of eternal change, 
 
 And from the gushing of thy simple fount 
 
 Has reasoned to the mighty universe. 
 
 Is there no other change for thee, that lurks 
 Among the future ages? Will not man 
 Seek out strange arts to wither and deform 
 The pleasant landscape which thou makest 
 green? 
 Or shall the veins that feed thy constant stream 
 Be choked in middle earth, and flow no more 
 
148 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 For ever, that the water-plants along 
 
 Thy channel perish, and the bird in vain 
 Alight to drink? Haply shall these green hills 
 Sink, with the lapse of years, into the gulf 
 
 Of ocean waters, and thy source be lost 
 Amidst the bitter brine? Or shall they rise, 
 Upheaved in broken cliffs and airy peaks, 
 Haunts of the eagle and the snake, and thou 
 Gush midway from the bare and barren steep? 
 
 
 
 SONG 
 
 Soon as the glazed and gleaming snow 
 Reflects the day-dawn cold and clear, 
 The hunter of the west must go 
 In depth of woods to seek the deer. 
 
 His rifle on his shoulder placed, 
 His stores of death arranged with skill, 
 His moccasins and snow-shoes laced,— 
 Why lingers he beside the hill? 
 
 Far, in the dim and doubtful light, 
 Where woody slopes a valley leave, 
 
 He sees what none but lover might, 
 The dwelling of his Genevieve. 
 
 And oft he turns his truant eye, 
 And pauses oft, and lingers near; 
 But when he marks the reddening sky, 
 He bounds away to hunt the deer. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 149 
 
 THE WEST WIND 
 
 Beneath the forest’s skirts I rest, 
 
 Whose branching pines rise dark and high, 
 And hear the breezes of the West 
 
 Among the threaded foliage sigh 
 
 Sweet Zephyr! why that sound of woe? 
 Is not thy home among the flowers? 
 Do not the bright June roses blow, 
 To meet thy kiss at morning hours? 
 
 And lo! thy glorious realm outspread— 
 Yon stretching valleys, green and gay, 
 
 And yon free hill-tops, o’er whose head 
 The loose white clouds are borne away. 
 
 And there the full broad river runs, 
 
 ‘And many a fount wells fresh and sweet, 
 To cool thee when the mid-day suns 
 
 Have made thee faint beneath their heat. 
 
 Thou wind of joy, and youth, and love; 
 Spirit of the new-wakened year! 
 
 The sun in his blue realm above 
 Smooths a bright path when thou art here. 
 
 In lawns the murmuring bee is heard, 
 The wooing ring-dove in the shade; 
 On thy soft breath the new-fledged bird 
 Takes wing, half happy, half afraid. 
 
150 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Ah! thou art like our wayward race ;— 
 When not a shade of pain or ill 
 
 Dims the bright smile of Nature’s face, 
 Thou lovest to sigh and murmur still. 
 
 
 
 THE BURIAL-PLACE 
 A FRAGMENT 
 
 Erewhile, on England’s pleasant shores, our 
 
 sires 
 
 Left not their churchyards unadorned with 
 shades 
 
 Or blossoms; and indulgent to the strong 
 
 And natural dread of man’s last home, the 
 grave, 
 
 Its frost and silence—they disposed around, 
 
 To soothe the melancholy spirit that dwelt 
 
 Too sadly on life’s close, the forms and hues 
 
 Of vegetable beauty.— There the yew, 
 
 Green even amid the snows of winter, told 
 
 Of immortality, and gracefully 
 
 The willow, a perpetual mourner, drooped; 
 
 And there the gadding woodbine crept about, 
 
 And there the ancient ivy. From the spot 
 
 Where the sweet maiden, in her blossoming 
 years 
 
 Cut off, was laid with streaming eyes, and hands 
 
 That trembled as they placed her there, the 
 rose 
 
 Sprung modest, on bowed stalk, and better 
 spoke 
 
 Her graces than the proudest monument. 
 
 There children set about their playmate’s grave 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 151 
 
 The pansy. On the infant’s little bed, 
 
 Wet at its planting with maternal tears, 
 
 Emblem of early sweetness, early death, 
 
 Nestled the lowly primrose. Childless dames, 
 
 And maids that would not raise the reddened 
 eye— 
 
 Orphans, from whose young lids the light of 
 Joy 
 
 Fled early,—silent lovers, who had given 
 
 All that they lived for to the arms of earth, 
 
 Came often, o’er the recent graves to strew 
 
 Their offerings, rue, and rosemary, and flowers. 
 
 The pilgrim bands who passed the sea to 
 Keep 
 
 Their Sabbaths in the eye of God alone, 
 
 In his wide temple of the wilderness, 
 
 Brought not these simple customs of the heart 
 
 With them. It might be, while they laid their 
 dead 
 
 By the vast solemn skirts of the old groves, 
 
 And the fresh virgin soil poured forth strange 
 flowers 
 
 About their graves; and the familiar shades 
 
 Of their own native isle, and wonted blooms, 
 
 And herbs were wanting, which the pious hand 
 
 Might plant or scatter there, these gentle rites 
 
 Passed out of use. Now they are scarcely 
 known, 
 
 And rarely in our borders may you meet 
 
 The tall larch, sighing in the burying-place, 
 
 Or willow, trailing low its boughs to hide 
 
 The gleaming marble. Naked rows of graves 
 
 And melancholy ranks of monuments 
 
152 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Are seen instead, where the coarse grass, be- 
 tween, 
 
 Shoots up its dull green spikes, and in the wind 
 
 Hisses, and the neglected bramble nigh 
 
 Offers its berries to the schoolboy’s hand, 
 
 In vain—they grow too near the dead. Yet 
 here, 
 
 Nature, rebuking the neglect of man, 
 
 Plants often, by the ancient mossy stone, 
 
 The brier rose, and upon the broken turf 
 
 That clothes the fresher grave, the strawberry 
 vine 
 
 Sprinkles its swell with blossoms, an lays forth 
 
 Her ruddy, poutine fruit) “ae 
 
 THE LIVING LOST 
 
 Matron! the children of whose love, 
 
 Each to his grave, in youth hath passed, 
 And now the mould is heaped above 
 
 The dearest and the last! 
 Bride! who dost wear the widow’s veil 
 Before the wedding flowers are pale! 
 Ye deem the human heart endures 
 No deeper, bitterer grief than yours. 
 
 Yet there are pangs of keener woe, 
 
 Of which the sufferers never speak, 
 Nor to the world’s cold pity show 
 
 The tears that scald the cheek, 
 Wrung from their eyelids by the shame 
 And guilt of those they shrink to name, 
 Whom once they loved with cheerful will, 
 And love, though fallen and branded, still. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 153 
 
 Weep, ye who sorrow for the dead, 
 Thus breaking hearts their pain relieve; 
 And reverenced are the tears ye shed, 
 And honored ye who grieve. 
 The praise of those who sleep in earth, 
 The pleasant memory of their worth, 
 The hope to meet when life is past, 
 Shall heal the tortured mind at last. 
 
 But ye, who for the living lost 
 That agony in secret bear, 
 Who shall with soothing words accost 
 The strength of your despair? 
 Grief for your sake is scorn for them 
 Whom ye lament and all condemn; 
 And o’er the world of spirits lies 
 A gloom from which ye turn your eyes. 
 
 THE MASSACRE AT SCIO 
 
 Weep not for Scio’s children slain; 
 
 Their blood, by Turkish falchions shed, 
 Sends not its cry to Heaven in vain 
 
 For vengeance on the murderer’s head. 
 
 Though high the warm red torrent ran 
 Between the flames that lit the sky, 
 
 . Yet, for each drop, an armed man 
 
 Shall rise, to free the land, or die. 
 
 And for each corpse, that in the sea 
 Was thrown, to feast the scaly herds, 
 A hundred of the foe shall be 
 A banquet for the mountain birds. 
 
154 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Stern rites and sad, shall Greece ordain 
 To keep that day, along her shore, 
 Till the last link of slavery’s chain 
 Is shivered, to be worn no more. 
 
 
 
 THE INDIAN GIRL’S LAMENT 
 
 An Indian girl was sitting where 
 Her lover, slain in battle, slept; 
 Her maiden veil, her own black hair 
 Came down o’er eyes that wept; 
 And wildly, in her woodland tongue, 
 
 This sad and simple lay she sung: 
 
 ‘‘T’ve pulled away the shrubs that grew 
 Too close above thy sleeping head, 
 
 And broke the forest boughs that threw 
 Their shadows o’er thy bed, 
 
 That, shining from the sweet south-west, 
 
 The sunbeams might rejoice thy rest. 
 
 ‘‘It was a weary, weary road 
 That led thee to the pleasant coast, 
 Where thou, in his serene abode, 
 Hast met thy father’s ghost; 
 Where everlasting autumn lies 
 On yellow woods and sunny skies. 
 
 ‘*’*Pwas I the broidered mocsen made, 
 That shod thee for that distant land; 
 
 ’Twas I thy bow and arrows laid 
 Beside thy still cold hand; 
 
 Thy bow in many a battle bent, 
 
 Thy arrows never vainly sent. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 15 
 
 or 
 
 ‘“‘With wampum belts I crossed thy breast, 
 And wrapped thee in the bison’s hide, 
 
 And laid the food that pleased thee best, 
 In plenty, by thy side, 
 
 And decked thee bravely, as became 
 
 A warrior of illustrious name. 
 
 *Thou’rt happy now, for thou hast passed 
 The long dark journey of the grave, 
 
 _ And in the land of light, at last, 
 Hast joined the good and brave; 
 
 Amid the flushed and balmy air, 
 
 The bravest and the loveliest there. 
 
 ‘“*Vet, oft to thine own Indian maid 
 Even there thy thoughts will earthward 
 stray,— 
 To her who sits where thou wert laid, 
 And weeps the hours away, 
 Yet almost can her grief forget, 
 To think that thou dost love her yet. 
 
 ‘‘And thou, by one of those still lakes 
 That in a shining cluster lie, 
 
 On which the south wind scarcely breaks 
 The image of the sky, 
 
 A bower for thee and me hast made 
 
 Beneath the many-colored shade. 
 
 ‘‘And thou dost wait and watch to meet 
 My spirit sent to join the blessed, 
 
 And, wondering what detains my feet 
 From the bright land of rest, 
 
 Dost seem, in every sound, to hear 
 
 The rustling of my footsteps near,.”’ 
 
156 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 ODE FOR AN AGRICULTURAL CELE- 
 BRATION 
 
 Far back in the ages, 
 The plough with wreaths was crowned; 
 Entwined the chaplet round; 
 
 Till men of spoil disdained the toil 
 By which the world was nourished, 
 
 The hands of kings and sages 
 
 And dews of blood enriched the soil 
 Where green their laurels flourished: 
 
 —Now the world her fault repairs— 
 The guilt that stains her story; 
 
 And weeps her crimes amid the cares 
 That formed her earliest glory. 
 
 The proud throne shall crumble, 
 The diadem shall wane, 
 
 The tribes of earth shall humble 
 The pride of those who reign; 
 
 And War shall lay his pomp away ;— 
 The fame that heroes cherish, 
 
 The glory earned in deadly fray 
 Shall fade, decay, and perish. 
 
 Honor waits, o’er all the Earth, 
 Through endless generations, 
 
 The art that calls her harvests forth, 
 And feeds the expectant nations. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 15) 
 
 THE RIVULET 
 
 This little rill, that from the springs 
 Of yonder grove its current brings, 
 Plays on the slope a while, and then 
 Goes prattling into groves again, 
 
 Oft to its warbling waters drew 
 
 My little feet, when life was new. 
 When woods in early green were dressed, 
 And from the chambers of the west 
 The warmer breezes, travelling out, 
 Breathed the new scent of flowers about, 
 My truant steps from home would stray, 
 Upon its grassy side to play, 
 
 List the brown thrasher’s vernal hymn, 
 And crop the violet on its brim, 
 
 With blooming cheek and open brow, 
 As young and gay, sweet rill, as thou. 
 
 And when the days of boyhood came, 
 And I had grown in love with fame, 
 Duly I sought thy banks, and tried 
 My first rude numbers by thy side. 
 Words cannot tell how bright and gay 
 The scenes of life before me lay. 
 
 Then glorious hopes, that now to speak 
 Would bring the blood into my cheek, 
 Passed o’er me; and I wrote, on high, 
 A name I deemed should never die. 
 
8 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Years change thee not. Upon yon hill 
 The tall old maples, verdant still, 
 Yet tell, in grandeur of decay, 
 How swift the years have passed away, 
 Since first, a child, and half afraid, 
 I wandered in the forest shade. 
 Thou ever-joyous rivulet, 
 Dost dimple, leap, and prattle yet; 
 And sporting with the sands that pave 
 The windings of thy silver wave, 
 And dancing to thy own wild chime, 
 Thou laughest at the lapse of time. 
 The same sweet sounds are in my ear 
 My early childhood loved to hear; 
 As pure thy limpid waters run, 
 As bright they sparkle to the sun; 
 As fresh and thick the bending ranks 
 Of herbs that line thy oozy banks; 
 The violet there, in soft May dew, 
 Comes up, as modest and as blue; 
 As green amid thy current’s stress, 
 Floats the scarce-rooted watercress: 
 And the brown ground-bird, in thy seen 
 Still chirps as merrily as then, 
 
 Thou changest not—but I am changed, 
 Since first thy pleasant banks I ranged; 
 And the grave stranger, come to see 
 The play-place of his infancy, 
 
 Has scarce a single trace of him 
 Who sported once upon thy brim. 
 The visions of my youth are past 
 Too bright, too beautiful to last. 
 I’ve tried the world—it wears no more 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 159 
 
 The coloring of romance it wore. 
 Yet well has Nature kept the truth 
 She promised to my earliest youth. 
 The radiantbeauty shed abroad 
 
 On all the glorious works of God, 
 Shows freshly, to my sobered eye, 
 Each charm it wore in days gone by. 
 
 A few brief years shall pass away, 
 And I, all trembling, weak, and gray, 
 Bowed to the earth, which waits to fold 
 My ashes in the embracing mould 
 (If haply the dark will of fate 
 Indulge my life so long a date), 
 
 May come for the last time to look 
 Upon my childhood’s favorite brook. 
 Then dimly on my eyes shall gleam 
 The sparkle of thy dancing stream; 
 And faintly on my ear shall fall 
 
 Thy prattling current’s merry call; 
 Yet shalt thou flow as glad and bright 
 As when thou met’st my infant sight. 
 
 And I shall sleep—and on thy side, 
 As ages after ages glide, 
 Children their early sports shall try, 
 And pass to hoary age and die. 
 But thou, unchanged from year to year, 
 Gayly shalt play and glitter here; 
 Amid young flowers and tender grass 
 Thy endless infancy shalt pass; 
 And, singing down thy narrow glen, 
 Shalt mock the fading race of men. 
 
160 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 MARCH 
 
 The stormy March is come at last, 
 
 With wind, and cloud, and changing skies, 
 I hear the rushing of the blast, 
 
 That through the snowy valley flies. 
 
 Ah, passing few are they who speak, 
 Wild stormy month! in praise of thee; 
 Yet, though thy winds are loud and bleak, — 
 Thou art a welcome month to me. 
 
 For thou, to northern lands, again 
 The glad and glorious sun dost bring, 
 And thou hast joined the gentle train 
 And wear’st the gentle name of Spring. 
 
 And, in thy reign of blast and storm, 
 Smiles many a long, bright, sunny day, 
 When the changed winds are soft and warm, 
 And heaven puts on the blue of May. 
 
 Then sing aloud the gushing rills 
 
 And the full springs, from frost set free, 
 That, brightly leaping down the hills, 
 
 Are just set out to meet the sea. 
 
 The year’s departing beauty hides 
 Of wintry storms the sullen threat; 
 But in thy sternest frown abides 
 A look of kindly promise yet. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 161 
 
 Thou bring’st the hope of those calm skies, 
 And that soft time of sunny showers, 
 
 When the wide bloom, on earth that lies, 
 Seems of a brighter world than ours. 
 
 —_——_ 
 
 
 
 SONNET TO 
 
 Ay, thou art for the grave; thy glances shine 
 Too brightly to shine long; another Spring 
 Shall deck her for men’s eyes,—but not for 
 thine— 
 Sealed in a sleep which knows no wakening. 
 The fields for thee have no medicinal leaf, 
 And the vexed ore no mineral of power; 
 And they who love thee wait in anxious grief 
 Till the slow plague shall bring the fatal hour. 
 Glide softly tothy rest then; Death should come 
 Gently, to one of gentle mould like thee, 
 As light winds wandering through groves of 
 bloom 
 Detach the delicate blossom from the tree. 
 Close thy sweet eyes, camly, and without pain; 
 And we will trust in God to see thee yet again. 
 
 AN INDIAN STORY 
 
 ‘*T know where the timid fawn abides 
 In the depths of the shaded dell, 
 Where the leaves are broad and the thicket 
 hides, 
 With its many stems and its tangled sides, 
 From the eye of the hunter well. 
 11 Bryant's 
 
162 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 ‘‘T know where the young May violet grows, 
 In its lone and lowly nook, 
 On the mossy bank, where the larch-tree 
 throws 
 Its broad dark boughs, in solemn repose, 
 Far over the silent brook. 
 
 ‘‘And that timid fawn starts not with fear 
 When I steal to her secret bower; 
 And that young May violet to me is dear, 
 And I visit the silent streamlet near, 
 To look on the lovely flower.’’ 
 
 Thus Maquon sings as he lightly walks 
 To the hunting-ground on the hills; 
 ’Tis a song of his maid of the woods and rocks, 
 With her bright black eyes and long black 
 locks, 
 And voice like the music of rills. 
 
 He goes to the chase—but evil eyes 
 Are at watch in the thicker shades; 
 For she was lovely that smiled on his sighs, 
 And he bore, from a hundred lovers, his 
 prize, 
 The flower of the forest maids, 
 
 The boughs in the morning wind are stirred, 
 And the woods their song renew, 
 
 With the early carol of many a bird, 
 
 And the quickened tune of the streamlet heard 
 Where the hazels trickle with dew. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 163 
 
 And Maquon has promised his dark-haired 
 maid, 
 Ere eve shall redden the sky, 
 A good red deer from the forest shade, 
 That bounds with the herd through grove and 
 glade, 
 At her cabin-door shall lie. 
 
 The hollow woods, in the setting sun, 
 Ring shrill with the fire-bird’s lay; 
 
 And Maquon’s sylvan labors are done, 
 
 And his shafts are spent, but the spoil they won 
 He bears on his homeward way. 
 
 He stops near his bower—his eye perceives 
 Strange traces along the ground— 
 At once to the earth his burden he heaves, 
 He breaks through the veil of boughs and 
 leaves, 
 And gains its door with a bound. 
 
 But the -vines are torn on its walls that leant. 
 And all from the young shrubs there 
 By struggling hands have the leaves been rent, 
 And there hangs on the sassafras, broken an¢ 
 bent, 
 One tress of the well-known hair. 
 
 But where is she who, at this calm hour, 
 Ever watched his coming to see? 
 
 She is not at the door, nor yet in the bower; 
 
 He calls—but he only hears on the flower 
 The hum of the laden bee. 
 
164 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 It is not a time for idle grief, 
 Nor a time for tears to flow; 
 The horror that freezes his limbs is brief— 
 He grasps his war-axe and bow, and a sheaf 
 Of darts made sharp for the foe. 
 
 And he looks for the print of the ruffian’s feet, 
 Where he bore the maiden away; 
 
 And he darts on the fatal path more fleet 
 
 Than the blast that hurries the vapor and sleet 
 O’er the wild November day. 
 
 ’Twas early summer when Maquon’s bride 
 Was stolen away from his door; 
 
 But at length the maples in crimson are dyed, 
 
 And the grape is black on the cabin side, — 
 And she smiles at his hearth once more, 
 
 But far in the pine-grove, dark and cold, 
 Where the yellow leaf falls not, 
 
 Nor the autumn shines in scarlet and gold, 
 
 There lies a hillock of fresh dark mould, 
 In the deepest gloom of the spot. 
 
 And the Indian girls that pass that way, 
 Point out the ravisher’s grave; 
 ‘‘ And how soon to the bower she loved,’”’ they 
 say, 
 **Returned the maid that was borne away 
 From Maquon, the fond and the brave.’’ 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 165 
 
 SUMMER WIND 
 
 It is sultry day; the sun has drunk 
 The dew that lay upon the morning grass; 
 There is no rustling in the lofty elm 
 That canopies my dwelling, and its shade 
 Scarce cools me. All is silent, save the faint 
 And interrupted murmur of the bee, 
 Settling on the sick flowers, and then again 
 Instantly on the wing. The plants around 
 Feel the too potent fervors: the tall maize 
 Rolls up its long green leaves; the clover droops 
 Its tender foliage, and declines its blooms. 
 But far in the fierce sunshine tower the hills, 
 With all their growth of woods, silent and 
 
 stern, 
 
 As if the scorching heat and dazzling light 
 Were but anelement they loved. Bright clouds, 
 Motionless pillars of the brazen heaven, — 
 Their bases on the mountains—their white tops 
 Shining in the far ether—fire the air 
 With a reflected radiance, and make turn 
 The gazer’s eye away. For me, I lie 
 Languidly in the shade, where the thick turf, 
 Yet virgin from the kisses of the sun, 
 Retains some freshness, and I woo the wind 
 That still delays its coming. Why so slow, 
 Gentle and voluble spirit of the air? 
 Oh, come and breathe upon the fainting earth 
 
166 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Coolness and life. Is it that in his caves 
 
 He hears me? See, on yonder woody ridge, 
 
 The pine is bending his proud top, and now 
 
 Among the nearer groves, chestnut and oak 
 
 Are tossing their green boughs about. He 
 comes! 
 
 Lo, where the grassy meadow runs in waves! 
 
 The deep distressful silence of the scene 
 
 Breaks up with mingling of unnumbered 
 sounds 
 
 And universal motion. He is come, 
 
 Shaking a shower of blossoms from the shrubs, 
 
 And bearing on their fragrance; and he brings 
 
 Music of birds, and rustling of young boughs, 
 
 And sound of swaying branches, and the voice 
 
 Of distant waterfalls. All the green herbs 
 
 Are stirring in his breath; a thousand flowers, 
 
 By the road-side and the borders of the brook, 
 
 Nod gayly to each other; glossy leaves 
 
 Are twinkling in the sun, as if the dew 
 
 Were on them yet, and silver waters break 
 
 Into small waves and sparkle as he comes, 
 
 
 
 SONG 
 
 Dost thou idly ask to hear 
 At what gentle seasons 
 Nymphs relent, when lovers near 
 Press the tenderest reasons? 
 Ah, they give their faith too oft 
 To the careless wooer; 
 Maidens’ hearts are always soft: 
 Would that men’s were truer! 
 
- 
 
 BRYANT’S POEMS | 167 
 
 Woo the fair one, when around 
 
 _ Early birds are singing; 
 
 When, over all the fragrant ground, 
 Early herbs are springing: 
 
 When the brookside, bank, and grove, 
 All with blossoms laden, 
 
 Shine with beauty, breathe of love,— 
 Woo the timid maiden. 
 
 Woo her when, with rosy blush, 
 Summer eve is sinking; 
 When, on rills that softly gush, 
 Stars are softly winking; 
 When, through boughs that knit the bower, 
 Moonlight gleams are stealing; 
 Woo her, till the gentle hour 
 Wake a gentler feeling. 
 
 Woo her, when autumnal dyes 
 Tinge the woody mountain; 
 
 When the dropping foliage lies 
 In the weedy fountain; 
 
 Let the scene, that tells how fast 
 Youth is passing’ over, 
 
 Warn her, ere her bloom is past, 
 To secure her lover. 
 
 Woo her, when the north winds call 
 At the lattice nightly; 
 
 When, within the cheerful hall, 
 Blaze the fagots brightly; 
 
 While the wintry tempest round 
 Sweeps the landscape hoary, 
 
 Sweeter in her ear shall sound 
 Love’s delightful story. 
 
168 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 AFTER A TEMPEST 
 
 The day had been aday of wind and storm ;— 
 The wind was laid, the storm was overpast,— 
 And stooping from the zenith and warm 
 Shone the great sun on the wide earth at 
 last. 
 I stood upon the upland slope, and cast 
 My eye upon a. broad and beauteous scene, 
 Where the vast plain lay girt by mountains 
 
 vast, 
 And hills o’er hills lifted their heads of 
 green, 
 With pleasant vales scooped out and villages 
 between. j 
 
 The rain-drops glistened on the trees around, 
 
 Whose shadows on the tall grass were not 
 stirred, 
 
 Save when a shower of diamonds, to the 
 ground, 
 
 Was shaken by the flight of startled bird; 
 
 For birds were warbling round, and bees 
 were heard 
 
 About the flowers; the cheerful rivulet sung 
 
 And gossiped, as he hastened ocean-ward ; 
 
 To the gray oak the squirrel, chiding, clung, 
 
 And chirping from the ground the grasshopper 
 
 upsprung. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 169 
 
 And from beneath the leaves that kept them 
 dry 
 
 Flew many a glittering insect here anc there, 
 
 And darted up and down the butterfly, 
 
 That seemed a living blossom of the air. 
 
 The flocks came scattering from the thicket, 
 where 
 
 The violent rain had pent them; in the way 
 
 Strolled groups of damsels frolicksome and 
 fair; 
 
 The farmer swung the scythe or turned the 
 hay, 
 
 And ’twixt the heavy swaths his children 
 
 were at play. 
 
 It was a scene of peace—and, like a spell, 
 
 Did that serene and golden sunlight fall 
 
 Upon the motionless wood that clothed the 
 fell, 
 
 And precipice upspringing like a wall, 
 
 And glassy river and white waterfall, 
 
 And happy living things that trod the bright 
 
 And beauteous scene; while far beyond them 
 all, 
 
 On many a lovely valley, out of sight, 
 
 Was poured from the blue heavens the same 
 
 soft golden light. 
 
 I looked, and thought the quiet of the scene 
 
 An emblem of the peace that yet shall be, 
 
 When o’er earth’s continents, and isles be- 
 tween, 
 
 The noise of war shall cease from sea to sea, 
 
 And married nations dwell in harmony: 
 
170 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 When millions, crouching in the dust to one, 
 - No more shall beg their lives on bended 
 knee, 
 Nor the black stake be dressed, nor in the 
 sun 
 The o’erlabored captive toil, and wish his life 
 were done. 
 
 Too long, at clash of arms amid her bowers 
 
 And pools of blood, the earth has stood aghast, 
 
 The fair earth, that should only blush with 
 flowers 
 
 And ruddy fruits; but not for aye can last 
 
 The storm, and sweet the sunshine when ’tis 
 past. 
 
 Lo, the clouds roll away—they break—they 
 fly, 
 
 And, like the glorious light of summer, cast 
 
 O’er the wide landscape from the embracing 
 sky, 
 
 On all the peaceful world the smile of heaven 
 
 shall lie. 
 
 AUTUMN WOODS 
 
 Ere, in the northern gale, 
 The summer tresses of the trees are gone, 
 The woods of Autumn, all around our vale, 
 Have put their glory on. 
 
 The mountains that infold, 
 In their wide sweep, the colored landscape 
 round, 
 Seem groups of giant kings, in purpleand gold, 
 That guard the enchanted ground. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS bg fh 
 
 I roam the woods that crown 
 The upland, where the mingled splendors glow, 
 Where the gay company of trees look down 
 On the green fields below. 
 
 My steps are not alone 
 In these bright walks; the sweet south-west, at 
 play, 
 Flies, rustling, where the painted leaves are 
 strown 
 Along the winding way. 
 
 ‘And far in heaven, the while, 
 The sun, that sends that gale to wander here, 
 Pours out on the fair earth his quiet smile,— 
 The sweetest of the year. 
 
 Where now the solemn shade, 
 Verdure and gloom where many branches meet; 
 So grateful, when the noon of summer made 
 The valleys sick with heat? 
 
 Let in through all the trees 
 Come the strange rays; the forest depths are 
 bright; 
 Their sunny-colored foliage, in the breeze 
 Twinkles, like beams of light. 
 
 The rivulet, late unseen, 
 Where bickering through the shrubs its waters 
 run, 
 Shines with the image of its golden screen 
 And glimmerings of the sun. 
 
172 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 But ‘neath yon crimson tree, 
 Lover to listening maid might breathe his 
 flame, 
 Nor mark, within its roseate canopy, 
 Her blush of maiden shame, 
 
 Oh, Autumn! why so soon 
 Depart the hues that make thy forests glad; 
 Thy gentle wind and thy fair sunny noon, 
 And leave thee wild and sad? 
 
 Ah! ’twere a lot too blessed 
 For ever in thy colored shades to stray; 
 Amid the kisses of the soft south-west 
 To rove and dream for aye; 
 
 And leave the vain low strife 
 That makes men mad—the tug for wealth and 
 power, 
 The passions and the cares that wither life, 
 And waste its little hour. 
 
 
 
 NOVEMBER 
 A SONNET 
 
 Yet one smile more, departing, distant sun! 
 One mellow smile through the soft vapory 
 air, 
 Ere, o’er the frozen earth, the loud winds run, 
 Or snows are sifted o’er the meadows bare. 
 One smile on the brown hills and naked trees, 
 And the dark rocks whose summer wreaths 
 are cast, 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 173 
 
 And the blue gentian flower, that, in the 
 breeze, — 
 Nods lonely, of her beauteous race the 
 last. 
 Yet a few sunny days, in which the bee 
 Shall murmur by the hedge that skirts the 
 way, 
 The cricket chirp upon the russet lea, 
 And man delight to linger in thy ray. 
 Yet one rich smile, and we will try to bear 
 The piercing winter frost, and winds, and 
 darkened air. 
 
 SONG OF THE. GREEK AMAZON 
 
 I buckle to my slender side 
 
 The pistol and the scimitar, 
 And in my maiden flower and pride 
 
 Am come to share the tasks of war, 
 And yonder stands my fiery steed, 
 
 That paws the ground and neighs to go, 
 My charger of the Arab breed,— 
 
 I took him from the routed foe. 
 
 My mirror is the mountain spring, 
 At which I dress my ruffied hair; 
 My dimmed and dusty arms I bring, 
 And wash away the blood-stain there. 
 Why should I guard from wind and sun 
 This cheek, whose virgin rose is fled? 
 It was for one—oh, only one— 
 I kept its bloom, and he is dead. 
 
174 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 But they who slew him—unaware 
 
 Of coward murderers lurking nigh— 
 And left him to the fowls of air, 
 
 Are yet alive—and they must die. 
 They slew him—and my virgin years 
 
 Are vowed to Greece and vengeance now 
 And many an Othman dame, in tears, 
 
 Shall rue the Grecian maiden’s vow. 
 
 ’ 
 
 I touched the lute in better days, 
 I led in dance the joyous band; 
 Ah! they may move to mirthful lays 
 Whose hands can touch a lover’s hand. 
 The march of hosts that haste to meet 
 seems gayer than the dance to me; 
 The lute’s sweet tones are not so sweet 
 As the fierce shout of victory. 
 
 
 
 THE MURDERED TRAVELER 
 
 When spring, to woods and wastes around 
 Brought bloom and joy again, 
 
 The murdered traveler’s bones were found, 
 Far down a narrow glen. 
 
 The fragrant birch, above him, hung 
 Her tassels in the sky; 
 
 And many a vernal blossom sprung, 
 And nodded careless by. 
 
 The red-bird warbled, as he wrought 
 His hanging nest o’erhead, 
 
 And fearless, near the fatal spot, 
 Her young the partridge led. 
 
wy 
 
 BRYANT’S POEMS 17 
 
 But there was weeping far away, 
 And gentle eyes, for him, 
 
 With watching many an anxious day, 
 Were sorrowful and dim. 
 
 They little knew, who loved him so, 
 The fearful death he met, 
 
 When shouting o’er the desert snow, 
 Unarmed, and hard beset ;— 
 
 Nor how, when round the frosty pole 
 The northern dawn was red, 
 
 The mountain wolf and wild-cat stole 
 To banquet on the dead ;— 
 
 Nor how, when strangers found his bones, 
 They dressed the hasty bier, 
 
 And marked his grave with nameless stones, 
 Unmoistened by a tear. 
 
 But long they looked, and feared, and wept, 
 Within his distant home; 
 
 And dreamed, and started as they slept, 
 For joy that he was come. 
 
 Long, long they looked—but never spied 
 His welcome step again, 
 
 Nor knew the fearful death he died 
 Far down that narrow glen. 
 
176 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 JUNE 
 
 I gazed upon the glorious sky 
 And the green mountains round; 
 And thought that when I came to lie 
 Within the silent ground, 
 ’T were pleasant, that in flowery June, 
 When brooks send up a cheerful tune, 
 And groves a joyous sound, 
 The sexton’s hand, my grave to make, 
 The rich, green mountain turf should break. 
 
 A cell within the frozen mould, 
 
 A coffin borne through sleet, 
 And icy clouds above it rolled, 
 
 While fierce the tempests beat— 
 Away!—I will not think of these— 
 Blue be the sky and soft the breeze, 
 
 Earth green beneath the feet, 
 
 And be the damp mould gently pressed 
 Into my narrow place of rest, 
 
 There through the long, long summer hours, 
 The golden light should lie, 
 
 And thick young herbs and groups of flowers 
 Stand in their beauty by. 
 
 The oriole should build and tell 
 
 His love-tale close beside my cell; 
 The idle butterfly 
 
 Should rest him there, and there be heard 
 
 The housewife bee and humming-bird. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 177 
 
 And what if cheerful shouts at noon 
 Come, from the village sent, 
 
 Or song's of maids, beneath the moon 
 With fairy laughter blent? 
 
 And what if, in the evening light, 
 
 Betrothed lovers walk in sight 
 Of my low monument? 
 
 I would the lovely scene around 
 
 Might know no sadder sight nor sound. 
 
 I know, I know I should not see 
 The season’s glorious show, 
 
 Nor would its brightness shine for me, 
 Nor its wild music flow; 
 
 But if, around my place of sleep, 
 
 The friends I love should come to weep, 
 They might not haste to go. 
 
 Soft airs, and song, and light, and bloom, 
 
 Should keep them lingering by my tomb. 
 
 These to their softened hearts should bear 
 The thought of what has been, 
 
 And speak of one who cannot share 
 The gladness of the scene; 
 
 Whose part, in all the pomp that fills 
 
 The circuit of the summer hills, 
 Is—that his grave is green; 
 
 And deeply would their hearts rejoice 
 
 To hear again his living voice. 
 
 . 12 Bryant’s 
 
178 BRYANT'S POEMS 
 
 THE SKIES 
 
 Ay! glorious thou standest there, 
 Beautiful, boundless firmament! 
 
 That, swelling wide o’er earth and air, 
 And round the horizon bent, 
 
 With thy bright vault, and sapphire wall, 
 
 Dost overhang and circle all. 
 
 Far, far below thee, tall old trees 
 Arise, and piles built up of old, 
 
 And hills, whose an¢ient summits freeze 
 In the fierce light and cold. 
 
 The eagle soars his utmost height, 
 
 Yet far thou stretchest o’er his flight. 
 
 Thou hast thy frowns—with thee on high 
 The storm has made his airy seat, 
 Beyond that soft blue curtain lie 
 His stores of hail and sleet. 
 Thence the consuming lightning's break, 
 There the strong hurricanes awake. 
 
 Yet art thou prodigal of smiles— 
 
 Smiles sweeter than thy frowns are stern: 
 Earth sends, from all her thousand isles, 
 
 A shout at thy return. 
 The glory that comes down from thee, 
 Bathes, in deep joy, the land and sea. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 179 
 
 The sun, the gorgeous sun is thine, 
 The pomp that brings and shuts the day, 
 The clouds that round him change and shine, 
 The airs that fan his way. 
 Thence look the thoughtful stars, and there 
 The meek moon walks the silent air. 
 
 The sunny Italy may boast 
 The beauteous tints that flush her skies, 
 And lovely, round the Grecian coast, 
 May thy blue pillars rise. 
 I only know how fair they stand 
 Around my own beloved land. 
 
 And they are fair—a charm is theirs, 
 That earth,the proud green earth, has not— 
 With all the forms, and hues, and airs, 
 That haunt her sweetest spot. 
 We gaze upon thy calm pure sphere, 
 And read of Heaven’s eternal year. 
 
 Oh, when, amid the throng of men, 
 The heart grows sick of hollow mirth, 
 How willingly we turn us then 
 Away from this cold earth, 
 And look into thy azure breast, 
 For seats of innocence and rest! 
 
180 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 A MEDITATION ON RHODE-ISLAND 
 COAL 
 
 Decolor, obscuris, vilis, non ille repexam 
 Cesariem regnum, non candida virginis ornat 
 Colla, nec insigni splendet per cingula morsu. 
 Sed nova si nigri videas miracula saxi, 
 Tunc superat pulchros cultus et quicquid Eois 
 Indus litoribus rubra scrutatur in alga. 
 CLAUDIAN, 
 
 I sat beside the glowing grate, fresh heaped 
 With Newport coal, and as the flame grew 
 bright 
 —The many-colored flame—and played and 
 leaped, 
 I thought of rainbows and the northern light, 
 Moore’s Lalla Rookh, the Treasury Report, 
 And other brilliant matters of the sort. 
 
 And last I thought of that fair isle which sent 
 The mineral fuel; on a summer day 
 I saw it once, with heat and travel spent, 
 And scratched by dwarf-oaks in the hollow 
 way; 
 Now dragged through sand, now jolted over 
 stone— 
 A rugged road through rugged Tiverton. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 181 
 
 And hotter grew the air, and hollower grew 
 The deep-worn path, and horror-struck, I 
 thought, 
 Where will this dreary passage lead me to? 
 This long dull road, so narrow, deep, and 
 hot? 
 I looked to see it dive in earth outright; 
 I looked—but saw a far more welcome sight. 
 
 Like a soft mist upon the evening shore, 
 At once a lovely isle before me lay, 
 Smooth and with tender verdure covered o’er, 
 As if just risen from its calm inland bay; 
 Sloped each way gently to the grassy edge, 
 And the small waves that dallied with the 
 sedge. 
 
 The barley was just reaped—its heavy sheaves 
 Lay on the stubble field—the tall maize stood 
 Dark in its summer growth, and shook its 
 leaves— 
 And bright the sunlight played on the young 
 wood— 
 For fifty years ago, the old men say, 
 The Briton hewed their ancient groves away. 
 
 I saw where fountains freshened the green 
 land, 
 And where the pleasant road, from door to 
 door, 
 With rows of cherry-trees on either hand, 
 Went wandering all that fertile region o’er— 
 Rogue’s Island once—but when the rogues 
 were dead, 
 Khode Island was the name it took instead. 
 
182 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Beautiful island! then it only seemed 
 A lovely stranger—it has grown a friend. . 
 I gazed onitssmooth slopes, but never dreamed 
 How soon that bright magnificent isle would 
 send 
 The treasures of its womb across the sea, 
 To warm a poet’s room and boil his tea. 
 
 Dark anthracite! that reddenest on my hearth, 
 Thou’ in those island mines didst slumber 
 long; 
 But now thou art come forth to move the earth, 
 And put to shame the men that mean thee 
 wrong. 
 Thou shalt be coals of fire to those that ere 
 thee, 
 And warm the shins of all that underrate thee. 
 
 Yea, they did wrong thee foully—they who 
 mocked 
 Thy honest face, and said thou wouldst not 
 burn; 
 Of hewing thee to chimney-pieces talked, 
 And grew profane—and swore, in bitter 
 scorn, 
 That men might to thy inner caves retire, 
 And there, unsinged, abide the day of fire. 
 
 Yet is thy greatness nigh. I pause to state, 
 That I too have seen greatness—even I— 
 Shook hands with Adams—stared at La Fayette, 
 When, barehead, in the hot noon of July, 
 He would not let the umbrella be held o’er him, 
 For which three cheers burst from the mob 
 
 before him, 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 183 
 
 And I have seen—not many months ago— 
 
 An eastern Governor in chapeau bras 
 And military coat, a glorious show! 
 
 Ride forth to visit the reviews, and ah! 
 How oft he smiled and bowed to Jonathan! 
 How many hands were shook and votes were 
 
 won! 
 
 "Twas a great Governor—thou too shalt be 
 Great in thy turn—and wide shall spread thy 
 fame, 
 And swiftly; farthest Maine shall hear of thee, 
 And cold New Brunswick gladden at thy 
 
 name, 
 And, faintly through its sleets, the weeping 
 isle 
 That sends the Boston folks their cod shall 
 smile. 
 
 For thou shalt forge vast railways, and shalt 
 heat 
 The hissing rivers into steam, and drive 
 Huge masses from thy mines, on iron feet, 
 Walking their steady way, as if alive, 
 Northward, till everlasting ice besets thee, 
 And south as far as the grim Spaniard lets thee. 
 
 Thou shalt make mighty engines swim the sea, 
 Like its own monsters—boats that for a 
 guinea 
 Will take a man to Havre—and shalt be 
 The moving soul of many a spinning-jenny, 
 And ply thy shuttles, till a bard can weaz 
 As good a suit of broadcloth as the mayor. 
 
184 BRYANT’S' POEMS 
 
 Then we will laugh at winter when we hear. 
 The grim old churl about our dwellings rave: 
 Thou, from that *“‘ruler of the inverted year,” 
 Shalt pluck the knotty scepter Cowper gave, 
 And pull him from his sledge, and drag him in, 
 And melt the icicles from off his chin, 
 
 THE NEW MOON 
 
 When, as the garish day is done, 
 
 Heaven burns with the descended sun, 
 "Tis passing sweet to mark, 
 
 Amid that flush of crimson light, 
 
 The new moon’s modest bow grow bright, 
 As earth and sky grow dark. 
 
 Few are the hearts too cold to feel 
 
 A thrill of gladness o’er them steal, 
 When first the wandering eye 
 
 Sees faintly, in the evening blaze, 
 
 That glimmering curve of tender rays 
 Just planted in the sky. 
 
 The sight of that young crescent brings 
 Thoughts of all fair and youthful things— 
 The hopes of early years; 
 And childhood’s purity and grace, 
 And joys that like a rainbow chase 
 The passing shower of tears. 
 
 The captive yields him to the dream 
 Of freedom, when that virgin beam 
 Comes out upon the air: 
 And painfully the sick man tries 
 To fix his dim and burning eyes 
 On the soft promise there. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 185 
 
 Most welcome to the lover’s sight, 
 
 Glitters that pure, emerging light; 
 For prattling poets say, 
 
 That sweetest is the lovers’ walk, 
 
 And tenderest is their murmured talk, 
 Beneath its gentle ray. 
 
 And there do graver men behold 
 A type of errors, loved of old, 
 Forsaken and forgiven; 
 And thoughts and wishes not of earth, 
 Just opening in their early birth, 
 Like that new light in heaven. 
 
 
 
 OCTOBER 
 mh A SONNET 
 
 Ay, thou art welcome, heaven’s delicious 
 breath, 
 When woods begin to wear the crimson leaf, 
 And suns grow meek, and the meek suns 
 grow brief, 
 And the year smiles as it draws near its death. 
 Wind of the sunny south! oh still delay 
 In the gay woods and in the golden air, 
 Like to a good old age released from care, 
 Journeying, in long serenity, away. 
 In such a bright, late quiet, would that I 
 Might wear out life like thee, mid bowers 
 and brooks, 
 And, dearer yet, the sunshine of kind looks, 
 And music of kind voices ever nigh; 
 And when my last sand twinkled in the glass. 
 Pass silently from men, as thou dost pass 
 
186 '  BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 THE DAMSEL OF PERU 
 
 Where olive leaves were twinkling in every 
 wind that blew, 
 
 There sat beneath the pleasant shade a damsei 
 of Peru. 
 
 Betwixt the slender boughs, as they opened to 
 the air, 
 
 Came glimpses of her ivory neck and of her 
 glossy hair; 
 
 And sweetly rang her silver voice, within that 
 shady nook, 
 
 As from the shrubby glen is heard the sound 
 of hidden brook. 
 
 ’'Tis a song of love and valor, in the noble 
 Spanish tongue, 
 
 That once upon the sunny plains of old Castile 
 was sung; 
 
 When, from their mountain holds, on the 
 Moorish rout below, 
 
 Had rushed the Christians like a flood, and 
 Swept away the foe. 
 
 Awhile that melody is still, and then breaks 
 forth anew 
 
 A wilder rhyme, a livelier note, of freedom 
 and Peru. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 187 
 
 For she has bound the sword to a youthful 
 lover’s side, 
 
 And sent him to the war the day she should 
 have been his bride, 
 
 And bade him bear a faithful heart to battle 
 for the right, 
 
 And held the fountains of her eyes till he was 
 out of sight. 
 
 Since the parting kiss was given, six weary 
 months are fled, | 
 
 And yet the foe is in the land, and blood must 
 yet be shed. 
 
 A white hand parts the branches, a lovely face 
 looks forth, 
 
 And bright dark eyes gaze steadfastly and 
 sadly toward the north. 
 
 Thou look’st in vain, sweet maiden, the sharp- 
 est sight would fail 
 
 To spy a sign of human life abroad in all the 
 vale; 
 
 For the noon is coming on, and the sunbeams 
 fiercely beat, 
 
 And the silent hills and forest-tops seem reel- 
 ing in the heat. 
 
 That white hand is withdrawn, that fair sad 
 face 1s gone, 
 
 But the music of that silver voice is flowing 
 sweetly on, 
 
 Not as of late, in cheerful tones, but mourn- 
 fully and low,— 
 
 A ballad of a tender maid heart-broken long 
 ago, 
 
188 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Of him who died in battle, the youthful and 
 the brave, 
 
 And her who died of sorrow, upon his early 
 grave. 
 
 But see, along that mountain’s slope, a fiery 
 horseman ride; 
 
 Mark his torn plume, his tarnished belt, the 
 saber at his side. 
 
 His spurs are buried rowel-deep, he rides with 
 loosened rein, 
 
 There’s blood upon his charger’s flank and 
 foam upon the mane; 
 
 He speeds him toward the olive-grove, along 
 that shaded hill; 
 
 God shield the helpless maiden there, if he 
 should mean her ill! 
 
 And suddenly that song has ceased, and sud- 
 denly I hear 
 
 A shriek sent up amid the shade, a shriek—but 
 not of fear. 
 
 For tender accents follow, and tender pauses 
 speak | 
 
 The overflow of gladness, when words are all 
 too weak: 
 
 “TI lay my good sword at thy feet, for now 
 Peru is free, 
 
 And I am come to dwell beside the olive-grove 
 with thee, *’ 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 189 
 
 THE AFRICAN CHIEF 
 
 Chained in’the market-place he stood, 
 A man of giant frame, 
 Amid the gathering multitude 
 That shrunk to hear his nane— 
 All stern of look and strong of limb, 
 His dark eye on the ground :— 
 And silently they gazed on him, 
 As on a lion bound. 
 
 Vainly, but well, that chief had fought, 
 He was a captive now, 
 
 Yet pride, that fortune humbles not, 
 Was written on his brow. 
 
 The scars his dark broad bosom wore, 
 Showed warrior true and brave; 
 
 A prince among his tribe before, 
 He could not be a slave. 
 
 Then to his conqueror he spake— 
 **My brother is a king; 
 
 Undo this necklace from my neck, 
 And take this bracelet ring, 
 
 And send me where my brother reigns, 
 And I will fill thy hands 
 
 With store of ivory from the plains, 
 And gold-dust from the sands.’’ 
 
190 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 **Not for thy ivory nor thy gold 
 Will I unbind thy chain; 
 
 That bloody hand shall never hold 
 The battle-spear again. 
 
 A price thy nation never gave 
 Shall yet be paid for thee; 
 
 For thou shalt be the Christian’s slave, 
 In lands beyond the sea.’’ 
 
 Then wept th- warrior chief, and bade 
 To sh._u nis locks away; 
 
 And one by one, each heavy braid 
 Before the victor lay. 
 
 Thick were the platted locks, and long, 
 And closely hidden there 
 
 Shone many a wedge of gold among 
 The dark and crisped hair. 
 
 ‘*Look, feast thy greedy eye with gold 
 Long kept for sorest need: 
 
 Take it—thou askest sums untold, 
 And say that I am freed. 
 
 Take it—my wife, the long, long day, 
 Weeps by the cocoa-tree, 
 
 And my young children leave their play, 
 And ask in vain for me.’’ 
 
 **T take thy gold—but I have made 
 Thy fetters fast and strong, 
 
 And ween that by the cocoa shade 
 Thy wife will wait thee long.’’ 
 
 Strong was the agony that shook 
 The captive’s frame to hear, 
 
 And the proud meaning of his look 
 Was changed to mortal fear. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 19] 
 
 His heart was broken—crazed his brain: 
 At once his eye grew wild; 
 
 He struggled fiercely with his chain, 
 Whispered, and wept, and smiled; 
 
 Yet wore not long those fatal bands, 
 And once, at shut of day, 
 
 They drew him forth upon the sands, 
 The foul hyena’s prey. 
 
 
 
 SPRING IN TOWN 
 
 The country ever has a lagging Spring, 
 Waiting for May to call its violets forth, 
 AndJune its roses—showers and sunshine bring, 
 Slowly, the deepening verdure o’er the 
 earth; 
 To put their foliage out, the woods are slack, 
 And one by one the singing-birds come back. 
 
 Within the city’s bounds the time of flowers 
 Comes earlier. Let a mild and sunny day, 
 Such as full often, for a few bright hours, 
 Breathes through the sky of March the airs 
 of May, 
 Shine on our roofs and chase the wintry 
 gloom— 
 And lo! our borders glow with sudden bloom. 
 
 For the wide sidewalks of Broadway are then 
 Gorgeous as are a rivulet’s banks in June, 
 That, overhung with blossoms, through its glen, 
 Slides soft away beneath the sunny noon, 
 And they who search the untrodden wood for 
 
 flowers 
 Meet in its depths no lovelier ones than ours. 
 
192 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 For here are eyes that shame the violet, 
 Or the dark drop that on the pansy lies, 
 And foreheads, white, as when in clusters set, 
 The anemones by forest fountains rise; 
 And the spring-beauty boasts no tenderer 
 streak 
 Than the soft red on many a youthful cheek. 
 
 And thick about those lovely temples lie 
 Locks that the lucky Vignardonne has curled, 
 Thrice happy man; whose trade it is to buy, 
 And bake, and braid those love-knots of the 
 world; 
 Who curls of every glossy color keepest, 
 And sellest, it is said, the blackest cheapest. 
 
 And well thou mayst—for Italy’s brown maids 
 Send the dark locks with which their brows 
 are dressed, 
 And Gascon lasses, from their jetty braids, 
 Crop half, to buy a riband for the rest; 
 But the fresh Norman girls their tresses spare, 
 And the Dutch damsel keeps her flaxen hair. 
 
 Then, henceforth, let no maid nor matron) 
 grieve, 
 To see her locks of an unlovely hue, 
 Frouzy or thin, for liberal art shall give 
 Such piles of curls as nature never knew. 
 Eve, with her veil of tresses, at the sight 
 Had blushed, outdone, and owned herself a 
 fright. 
 
BRYANTS POEMS 193 
 
 Soft voices and light laughter wake the street, 
 Like notes of woodbirds, and where’er the 
 eye 
 Threads the long way, plumes wave, and 
 twinkling feet 
 Fall light, as hastes that crowd of beauty by. 
 The ostrich, hurrying o’er the desert space, 
 Scarce bore those tossing plumes with fleeter 
 pace. 
 
 No swimming Juno gait, of languor born, 
 
 Is theirs, but a light step of freest grace, 
 Light as Camilla’s o’er the unbent corn,— 
 
 A step that speaks the spirit of the place, 
 Since Quiet, meek old dame, was driven away 
 To Sing Sing and the shores of Tappan bay. 
 
 Ye that dash by in chariots! who will care 
 For steeds or footmen now? ye cannot show 
 Fair face. and dazzling dress, and graceful 
 air, 
 And last edition of the shape! Ah no, 
 These sights are for the earth and open sky, 
 And your loud wheels unheeded rattle by. 
 
 THE GLADNESS OF NATURE 
 
 Is this a time to be cloudy and sad, 
 When our mother Nature laughs around; 
 When even the deep blue heavens look glad, 
 And gladness breathes from the blossoming 
 ground? | 
 *3 Bryant's 
 
194 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 There are notes of joy from the hang-bird and 
 wren, 
 And the gossip of swallows through all the 
 sky; 
 The ground-squirrel gayly chirps by his den, 
 And the wilding bee hums merrily by. 
 
 The clouds are at play in the azure space, 
 And their shadows at play on the bright 
 green vale, 
 And here they stretch to the frolic chase, 
 And there they roll.on the easy gale. 
 
 There’s a dance of leaves in that aspen bower 
 There’s a titter of winds in that beechen tree, 
 There’s a smile on the fruit, and a smile on the 
 flower, 
 And a laugh from the brook that runs to the 
 sea. 
 
 And look at the broad-faced sun, how he smiles 
 On the dewy earth that smiles in his ray, 
 
 On the leaping waters and gay young isles; 
 Ay, look, and he’ll smile thy gloom away. 
 
 THE TWO GRAVES 
 
 'Tis a bleak, wild hill—but green and bright 
 In the summer warmth and the mid-day light; 
 There’s the hum of the bee and the chirp of 
 
 the wren, 
 And the dash of the brook from the alder glen; 
 There’s the sound of a bell from the scattered 
 flock, 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 195: 
 
 And the shade of the beech lies cool on the rock, 
 
 And fresh from the west is the free wind’s 
 breath, — 
 
 There is nothing here that speaks of death. 
 
 Far yonder, where orchards and gardens lie, 
 And dwellings cluster, ’tis there men die. 
 They are born, they die, and are buried near, 
 Where the populous grave-yard lightens the 
 
 bier; 
 For strict and close are the ties that bind 
 In death the children of human-kind; 
 Yea, stricter and closer than those of life, — 
 ’Tis a neighborhood that knows no strife. 
 They are noiselessly gathered—friend and foe— 
 To the still and dark assemblies below; 
 Without a frown or a smile they meet, 
 Each pale and calm in his winding-sheet; 
 In that sullen home of peace and gloom, 
 Crowded, like guests in a banquet-room. 
 
 Yet there are graves in this lonely spot, 
 Two humble graves,—but I meet them not. 
 I have seen them,—eighteen years are past, 
 Since I found their place in the brambles last, — 
 The place where, fifty winters ago, 
 An aged man in his locks of snow, 
 And an aged matron, withered with years, 
 Were solemnly laid!—but not with tears. 
 For none, who sat by the light of their hearth, 
 Beheld their coffins covered with earth; 
 Their kindred were far, and their children dead, 
 When the funeral prayer was coldly said. . 
 
 
 
196 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Two low green hillocks, two small gray 
 
 - stones, 
 
 Rose over the place that held their bones; 
 But the grassy hillocks are leveled again, 
 And the keenest eye might search in vain, 
 ’Mong briers, and ferns, and paths of sheep, 
 For the spot where the aged couple sleep. 
 
 Yet well might they lay, beneath the soil 
 
 Of this lonely spot, that man of toil, 
 
 And trench the strong hard mould with the 
 spade, 
 
 Where never before a grave was made; 
 
 For he hewed the dark old woods away, 
 
 And gave the virgin fields to the day; 
 
 And the gourd and the bean, beside his door, 
 
 Bloomed where their flowers ne’er opened 
 before; 
 
 And the maize stood up, and the bearded 
 rye 
 
 Bent low in the breath of an unknown sky 
 
 "Tis said that when life is ended here, 
 The spirit is borne to a distant sphere; 
 That it visits its earthly home no more, 
 Nor looks on the haunts it loved before. 
 But why should the bodiless soul be sent 
 Far off, to a long, long banishment? 
 
 Talk not of the light and the living green! 
 
 It will pine for the dear familiar scene; 
 
 Tt will yearn, in that strange bright world, to 
 behold 
 
 The rock and the stream it knew of old. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 197 
 
 ’Tis a cruel creed, believe it not! 
 Death to the good is a milder lot. 
 They are here,—that harmless pair, 
 In the yellow sunshine and flowing air, 
 In the light cloud-shadows that slowly pass, 
 In the sounds that rise from the murmuring 
 erass, 
 They sit where their htmble cottage stood, 
 They walk by the waving edge of the wood, 
 And list to the long-accustomed flow 
 Of the brook that wets the rocks below. 
 Patient, and peaceful, and passionless, 
 As seasons on seasons swiftly press, 
 They watch, and wait, and linger around, 
 Till the day when their bodies shall leave the 
 ground. 
 
 —— 
 
 A SUMMER RAMBLE 
 
 The quiet August noon has come, 
 A slumberous silence fills the sky, 
 The fields are still, the woods are dumb, 
 In glassy sleep the waters lie. 
 
 And mark yon soft white clouds that rest 
 Above our vale, a moveless throng; 
 
 The cattle on the mountain’s breast 
 Enjoy the grateful shadows long. 
 
 Oh, how unlike those merry hours 
 In early June when Earth laughs out, 
 When the fresh winds make love to flowers, 
 And woodlands sing and waters shout. 
 
Ls BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 When in the grass sweet voices talk, 
 And strains of tiny music swell 
 
 From every moss-cup of the rock, 
 From every nameless blossom’s bell. 
 
 But now a joy too deep for sound, 
 A peace no other season knows, 
 
 Hushes the heavens and wraps the ground, 
 The blessing of supreme repose. 
 
 Away! I will not be, to-day, 
 The only slave of toil and care. 
 Away from desk and dust! away! 
 I’l1l be as idle as the air. 
 
 Beneath the open sky abroad, 
 
 Among the plants and breathing things, 
 The sinless, peaceful works of God, 
 
 I’ll share the calm the season brings. 
 
 Come, thou, in whose soft eyes I see 
 The gentle meanings of thy heart, 
 
 One day amid the woods with me, 
 From men and all their cares apart. 
 
 And where, upon the meadow’s breast, 
 The shadow of the thicket lies, 
 
 The blue wild flowers thou gatherest 
 Shall glow yet deeper near thine eyes. 
 
 Come, and when mid the caim profound, 
 I turn, those gentle eyes to seek, 
 
 They, like the lovely landscape round, 
 Of innocence and peace shall speak, 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 199 
 
 Rest here, beneath the unmoving shade, 
 And on the silent valleys gaze, 
 
 Winding and widening, till they fade 
 In yon soft ring of summer haze. 
 
 The village trees their summits rear 
 Still as its spire, and yonder flock 
 
 At rest in those calm fields appear 
 As chiseled from the lifeless rock. 
 
 One tranquil mount the scene o’erlooks— 
 There the hushed winds their sabbath keep, 
 
 While a,near hum from bees and brooks 
 Comes faintly like the breath of sleep 
 
 Well may the gazer deem that when, 
 Worn with the struggle and the strife, 
 
 And heart-sick at the wrongs of men, 
 The good forsakes the scene of life; 
 
 Like this deep quiet that, awhile, 
 Lingers the lovely landscape o’er, 
 
 Shall be the peace whose holy smile 
 Welcomes him to a happier shore. 
 
 
 
 A SCENE ON THE BANKS OF THE 
 HUDSON 
 
 Cool shades and dews are round my way, 
 And silence of the early day; 
 
 Mid the dark rocks that watch his bed, 
 Glitters the mighty Hudson spread, 
 Unrippled, save by drops that fall 
 
 From shrubs that fringe his mountain wall; 
 And o’er the clear still water swells 
 
 The music of the Sabbath bells. 
 
‘ 
 
 200 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 All, save this little nook of land, 
 
 Circled with trees on which I stand; 
 
 All, save that line of hills which lie 
 Suspended in the mimic sky— 
 
 Seems a blue void, above, below, 
 
 Through which the white clouds come ard 
 
 £9, 
 And from the green world’s farthest steep 
 I gaze into the airy deep. 
 
 Loveliest of lovely things are they, 
 
 On earth, that soonest pass away. 
 
 The rose that lives its little hour 
 
 Is prized beyond the sculptured flower. 
 Even love, long tried and cherished long, 
 Becomes more tender and more strong, 
 At thought of that insatiate grave 
 
 From which its yearnings cannot save. 
 
 River! in this still hour thou hast 
 Too much of heaven on earth to last; 
 Nor long may thy still waters lie, 
 
 An image of the glorious sky. 
 
 Thy fate and mine are not repose, 
 And ere another evening close, 
 
 Thou to thy tides shalt turn again, 
 And I to seek the crowd of men. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 201 
 
 WILLIAM TELL 
 A SONNET 
 
 Chains may subdue the feeble spirit, but thee, 
 Tell, of the iron heart! they could not tame! 
 For thou wert of the mountains; they proclaim 
 
 The everlasting creed of liberty. 
 
 That creed is written on the untrampled snow, 
 Thundered by torrents which no power can 
 
 hold, 
 Save that of God, when hesends forth his cold, 
 
 And breathed by winds that through the free 
 
 heaven blow. 
 
 Thou, while thy prison walls were dark around, - 
 Didst meditate the lesson Nature taught. 
 And to thy brief captivity was brought 
 
 A vision of thy Switzerland unbound. 
 
 The bitter cup they mingled, strengthened 
 thee 
 For the great work to set thy country free. 
 
 THE HUNTER’S SERENADE 
 
 Thy bower is finished, fairest! 
 
 Fit bower for hunter’s bride— 
 Where old woods overshadow 
 
 The green savanna’s side. | 
 I’ve wandered long, and wandered far, 
 
 And never have | met 
 
 ~ 
 
202 
 
 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 In all this lovely western land, 
 A spot so lovely yet. 
 
 But I shall think it fairer, 
 When thou art come to bless, 
 
 With thy sweet smile and silver voice, 
 Its silent loveliness. 
 
 For thee the wild grape glistens, 
 On sunny knoll and tree, 
 
 The slim papaya ripens 
 Its yellow fruit for thee. 
 
 For thee the duck, on glassy stream, 
 The prairie-fowl shall die, 
 
 My rifle for thy feast shall bring 
 The wild swan from the sky. 
 
 The forest’s leaping panther, 
 Fierce, beautiful, and fleet, 
 
 Shall yield his spotted hide to be 
 A carpet for thy feet. 
 
 I know, for thou hast told me, 
 Thy maiden love of flowers; 
 Ah, those that deck thy gardens 
 
 Are pale compared with ours. 
 
 When our wide woods and mighty lawns 
 
 Bloom to the April skies, 
 
 The earth has no more gorgeous sight 
 To show to human eyes. 
 
 In meadows red with blossoms, 
 All summer long, the bee 
 
 Murmurs, and loads his yellow thighs, 
 For thee, my love, and me. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Or wouldst thou gaze at tokens 
 Of ages long ago— 
 
 Our old oaks stream with mosses, 
 And sprout with mistletoe; 
 
 And mighty vines, like serpents, climb 
 The giant sycamore; 
 
 And trunks, o’erthrown for centuries, 
 Cumber the forest floor; 
 
 And in the great savanna, 
 The solitary mound, 
 
 Built by the elder world, o’erlooks 
 The loneliness around. 
 
 Come, thou hast not forgotten 
 Thy pledge and promise quite, 
 
 With many blushes murmured, 
 Beneath the evening light. 
 
 Come, the young violets crowd my door, 
 Thy earliest look to win, 
 
 And at my silent window-sill 
 The jessamine peeps in. 
 
 All day the red-bird warbles, 
 Upon the mulberry near, 
 
 And the night-sparrow trills her song, 
 All night, with none to hear. 
 
 203 
 
204 ERYANT’S POEMS 
 
 THE GREEK BOY 
 
 Gone are the glorious Greeks of old, 
 Glorious in mien and mind; 
 
 Their bones are mingled with the mould, 
 Their dust is on the wind; 
 
 The forms they hewed from living stone 
 
 Survive the waste of years, alone, 
 
 And, scattered with their ashes, show 
 
 What greatness perished long ago. 
 
 Yet fresh the myrtles there—the springs 
 Gush brightly as of yore; 
 
 Flowers blossom from the dust of kings, 
 As many an age before. 
 
 There nature moulds as nobly now, 
 
 As e’er of old, the human brow; 
 
 And copies still the martial form 
 
 That braved Platza’s battle storm. 
 
 Boy! thy first looks were taught to seek 
 Their heaven in Hellas’ skies; 
 
 Her airs have tinged thy dusky cheek, 
 Her sunshine lit thine eyes; 
 
 Thine ears have drunk the woodland strains 
 
 Heard by old poets, and thy veins 
 
 Swell with the blood of demigods, 
 
 That slumber in thy country’s sods. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 205 
 
 Now is thy nation free-—_though late— 
 Thy elder brethren broke— 
 
 Broke, ere thy spirit felt its weight, 
 The intolerable yoke. 
 
 And Greece, decayed, dethroned, doth see 
 
 Her youth renewed in such as thee: 
 
 A shoot of that old vine that made 
 
 The nations silent in its shade. 
 
 
 
 “WHEN THE FIRMAMENT QUIVERS 
 WITH DAYLIGHT’S YOUNG BEAM”’ 
 
 When the firmament quivers with daylight’s 
 young beam, 
 And the woodlands awaking burst into a 
 hymn, 
 And the glow of the sky blazes back from the 
 stream, 
 How the bright ones of heaven in the bright- 
 ness grow dim. ~ 
 
 Oh! ’tis sad, in that moment of glory und song, 
 Tosee, while the hill-tops are waiting the sun, 
 The glittering band that kept watch all night 
 long 
 O'er Love and o’er Slumber, go out one by 
 one: 
 
 Till the circle of ether, deep, ruddy, and vast, 
 Scarce glimmers with one of the train that 
 were there; 
 And their leaders the day-star, the brightest and 
 last 
 Twinkles faintly and fades in the desert of 
 air. 
 
206 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Thus, Oblivion, from midst of whose shadow 
 we came, 
 Steals o’er us again when life’s twilight is 
 gone; 
 And the crowd of bright names, in the heaven 
 of fame, 
 Grow pale and are quenched as the years 
 hasten on. 
 
 Let them fade—but we'll pray that the age, in 
 whose flight, 
 Of ourselves and our friends the remem- 
 brance shall die, 
 May rise o’er the world, with the gladness and 
 light 
 Of the morning that withers the stars from 
 the sky. 
 
 TO THE RIVER ARVE 
 
 SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN AT A HAMLET NEAR 
 THE FOOT OF MONT BLANC 
 
 Not from the sands or cloven rocks, 
 Thou rapid Arve! thy waters flow; 
 Nor earth, within her bosom, Iccks 
 Thy dark unfathomed wells below. 
 Thy springs are in the cloud, thy stream 
 Begins to move and murmur first 
 Where ice-peaks feel the noonday beam, 
 Or rain-storms on the glacier burst. 
 
 Born where the thunder and the blast, 
 And morning’s earliest light are born, 
 
 Thou rushest swol’n, and loud, and fast, 
 By these low homes, as if in scorn: 
 
BRYANT S POEMS 207 
 
 Yet humbler springs yield purer waves; 
 And brighter, glassier streams than thine, 
 Sent up from earth’s unlighted caves, 
 With heaven’s own beam and image shine. 
 
 Yet stay; for here are flowers and trees; 
 Warm rays on cottage roofs are here, 
 
 And laugh of girls, and hum of bees— 
 Here linger till thy waves are clear. 
 
 Thou heedest not—thou hastest on; 
 From steep to steep thy torrent falls, 
 
 Till, mingling with the mighty Rhone, 
 It rests beneath Geneva’s walls. 
 
 Rush on—but were there one with me 
 That loved me, I would light my hearth 
 Here, where with God’s own majesty 
 Are touched the features of the earth. 
 By these old peaks, white, high, and vast, 
 Still rising as the tempests beat, 
 Here would I dwell, and sleep, at last, 
 Among the blossoms at their feet. 
 
 TO COLE, THE PAINTER, DEPARTING 
 FOR EUROPE 
 
 A SONNET 
 
 Thine eyes shall see the light of distant skies: 
 Yet, Cole! thy heart shall bear to Europe’s 
 strand 
 A living image of thy native land, 
 such as on thine own glorious canvas lies; 
 Lone lakes—savannas where the bison roves— 
 
208 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Rocks rich with summer garlands—solemn 
 
 streams— 
 Skies, where the desert eagle wheels and 
 screams— 
 Spring bloom and autumn blaze of boundless 
 groves. 
 Fair scenes shall greet thee where thou goest 
 —fair, 
 
 But different—everywhere the trace of men, 
 Paths, homes, graves, ruins, from the lowest 
 . glen 
 To where life shrinks from the fierce Alpine air; 
 Gaze on them, till the tears shall dim thy 
 sight, 
 But keep that earlier, wilder image bright. 
 
 —_ 
 
 HYMN OF THE City 
 
 Not in the solitude 
 Alone may man commune with Heaven, or see 
 Only in savage wood 
 And sunny vale, the present Deity; 
 Or only hear his voice 
 Where the winds whisper and the waves 
 rejoice. 
 
 Even here do I behold 
 
 Thy steps, Almighty !—here,amidst the crowd, 
 Through the great city rolled, 
 
 With everlasting murmur deep and loud— 
 Choking the ways that wind 
 
 *Mongst the proud piles, the work of human 
 ‘kind, 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 209 
 
 Thy golden sunshine comes 
 From the round heaven, and on their dwellings 
 lies, 
 And lights their inner homes; 
 For them thou fill’st with air the unbounded 
 skies, : 
 And givest them the stores 
 Of ocean, and the harvests of its shores. 
 
 Thy Spirit is around, 
 
 Quickening the restless mass that sweeps along, 
 And this eternal sound— 
 
 Voices and footfalls of the numberless throng— 
 Like the resounding sea, 
 
 Or like the rainy tempest, speaks of thee. 
 
 And when the hours of rest 
 
 Come, like a calm upon the mid-sea brine, 
 Hushing its billowy breast— 
 
 The quiet of that moment too is thine; 
 lt breathes of Him who keeps 
 
 The vast and helpless city while it sleeps. 
 
 A WALK AT SUNSET 
 
 When insect wings are glistening in the beam 
 Of the low sun, and mountain-tops are bright, 
 Oh, let me, by the crystal valley-stream, 
 Wander amid the mild and mellow light; 
 And, while the wood-thrush pipes his evening 
 lay, 
 Give me one lonely hour to hymn the setting 
 day. 
 
 14 Bryant’s 
 
210 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Oh, sun! that o’er the western mountains now 
 Go’st down in glory! ever beautiful 
 And blessed is thy radiance, whether thou 
 Colorest the eastern heaven and night-mist 
 cool, 
 Till the bright day-star vanish, or on high 
 Climbest and streamest thy white splendors 
 from mid sky. , 
 
 Yet, loveliest are thy setting smiles, and fair, 
 Fairest of all that earth beholds, the hues 
 That live among the clouds and flush the air, 
 
 Lingering and deepening at the hour of 
 dews. 
 Then softest gales are breathed, and softest 
 heard 
 The plaining voice of streams and pensive note 
 of bird. 
 
 They who here roamed, of yore, the forest wide, 
 Felt, by such charm, their simple bosoms 
 won; 
 They deemed their quivered warrior, when he 
 died, 
 Went to bright isles beneath the setting sun; 
 Where winds are aye at peace, and skies are 
 fair, 
 And purple-skirted clouds curtain the crimson 
 air. 
 
 So, with the glories of the dying day, 
 Its thousand trembling lights and changing 
 hues, 
 The memory of the brave who passed away 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 211 
 
 Tenderly mingled ;—fitting hour to muse 
 On such grave theme, and sweet the dream that 
 shed 
 Brightness and beauty round the destiny of the 
 dead. 
 
 For ages, on the silent forests here, 
 Thy beams did fall before the red man came 
 To dwell beneath them; in their shade the deer 
 Fed, and feared not the arrow’s deadly aim. - 
 Nor tree was felled in all that world of woods, 
 Save by the beaver’s tooth, or winds, or rush 
 of floods. 
 
 Then came the hunter tribes, and thou didst 
 look, 
 For ages, on their deeds in the hard chase, 
 And well-fought wars; green sod and silver 
 brook 
 Took the first stain of blood; before thy face 
 The warrior generations came and passed, 
 And glory was laid up for many an age to last. 
 
 Now they are gone, gone as thy setting blaze 
 Goes down the west, while night is pressing 
 on, 
 And with them the old tale of better days 
 And trophies of remembered power, are gone. 
 Yon field that gives the harvest, where the 
 plough 
 Strikes the white bone, is all that tells their 
 story now. 
 
212 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 I stand upon their ashes in thy beam, 
 The offspring of another race, I stand, 
 Beside a stream they loved, this valley stream; 
 Andwhere the night-fires of the quivered band 
 Showed the gray oak by fits, and war-song rung, 
 I teach the quiet shades the strains of this new 
 tongue. 
 
 Farewell! but thou shalt come again! thy light 
 Must shine on other changes, and behold 
 The place of the thronged city still as night— 
 States fallen—new empires built upon the 
 old— 
 But never shalt thou see these realms again 
 Darkened by boundless groves, and roamed by 
 savage men. 
 
 CONSUMPTION 
 
 Ay. thou art for the grave; thy glances shine 
 Too brightly to shine long; another Spring 
 Shall deck her for men’s eyes, but not for 
 thine— 
 Sealed in a sleep which knows no wakening. 
 The fields for thee have no medicinal leaf, 
 And the vexed ore no mineral of power; 
 And they who love thee wait in anxious grief 
 Till the slow plague shall bring the fatal 
 hour. 
 Glide softly to thy rest then; Death should 
 come, 
 Gently, to one of gentle mould like thee, 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 213 
 
 As light winds wandering through groves of 
 bloom 
 Detach the delicate blossom’ from the tree. 
 Close thy sweet eyes, calmly, and without pain; 
 And we will trust in God to see thee yet again. 
 
 THE FIRMAMENT 
 
 Ay! gloriously thou standest there, 
 Beautiful, boundless firmament! 
 That, swelling wide o’er earth and air, 
 | And round the horizon bent, 
 With thy bright vault, and sapphire wall, 
 Dost overhang and circle all. 
 
 Far, far below thee, tall gray trees 
 Arise, and piles built up of old, 
 
 And hills, whose ancient summits freeze 
 In the fierce light and cold. 
 
 The eagle soars his utmost height, 
 
 Yet far thou stretchest o’er his flight. 
 
 Thou hast thy frowns— with thee on high’ 
 The storm has made his airy seat. 
 Beyond that soft blue curtain lie 
 His stores of hail and sleet. 
 Thence the consuming lightnings break, 
 There the strong hurricanes awake. 
 
 Yet art thou prodigal of smiles— 
 
 Smiles, sweeter than thy frowns are stern. 
 Earth sends, from all her thousand isles, 
 
 A shout at their return. 
 The glory that comes down from thee, 
 Bathes, in deep joy, the land and sea, 
 
~ 
 
 214 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 The sun, the gorgeous sun is thine, 
 The pomp that brings and shuts the day, 
 The clouds that round him change and shine, 
 The airs that fan his way. 
 Thence look the thoughtful stars, and there 
 The meek moon walks the silent air. 
 
 The sunny Italy may boast 
 The beauteous tints that flush her skies, 
 And lovely, round the Grecian coast, 
 May thy blue pillars rise. 
 I only know how fair they stand 
 Around my own beloved land. 
 
 And they are fair—a charm is theirs, 
 That earth, the proud green earth, has not— 
 With all the forms, and hues, and airs, 
 That haunt her sweetest spot. 
 We gaze upon thy calm pure sphere, 
 And read of Heaven’s eternal year. 
 
 Oh, when, amid the throng of men, 
 The heart grows sick of hollow mirth, 
 How willingly we turn us then 
 Away from this cold earth, 
 And look into thy azure breast, 
 For seats of innocence and rest! 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 THE GREEK PARTISAN 
 
 Our free flag is dancing 
 In the free mountain air, 
 
 And burnished arms are glancing, 
 And warriors gathering there! 
 
 ‘nd fearless is the little train 
 \Vhose gallant bosoms shield it; 
 
 215 
 
 “he blood that warms their hearts shall 
 
 stain 
 That banner ere they yield it. 
 —Each dark eye is fixed on earth, 
 And brief each solemn greeting; 
 There is no look nor sound of mirth, 
 Where those stern men are meeting. 
 
 They go to the slaughter, 
 To strike the sudden blow, 
 
 And pour.on earth, like water, 
 The best blood of the foe; 
 
 To rush on them from rock and height. 
 And clear the narrow valley, 
 
 Or fire their camp at dead of night, 
 And fly before they rally. 
 
 —Chains are round our country pressed, 
 And cowards have betrayed her, 
 
 And we must make her bleeding breast 
 The grave of the invader, 
 
216 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Not till from her fetters 
 We raise up Greece again, 
 And write, in bloody letters, 
 That tyranny is slain, — 
 
 Oh, not till then the smile shall steal 
 Across those darkened faces, 
 Nor one of all those warriors feel 
 His children’s dear embraces. 
 —Reap we not the ripened wheat, 
 Till yonder hosts are flying, 
 And all their bravest, at our feet, 
 
 Like autumn sheaves are lying. 
 
 THE. STRANGE CADDY 
 
 The summer morn is bright and fresh, the 
 birds are darting by, 
 
 As if they loved to breast the breeze that 
 sweeps the cool clear sky; 
 
 Young Albert, in the forest’s edge, has heard 
 a rustling sound, 
 
 An arrow lightly strikes his hand and falls upon 
 the ground. 
 
 A dark-haired woman from the wood comes 
 suddenly in sight; 
 
 Her merry eye is full and black, her cheek is 
 brown and bright; 
 
 Her gown is of the mid-sea blue, her belt with 
 beads is strung, 
 
 And yet she speaks in gentle tones, and in the 
 English tongue. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 217 
 
 **It was an idle bolt I sent, against the villain 
 CTOW ; 
 
 Fair sir, I fear it harmed thy hand; beshrew 
 my erring bow!’’ 
 
 **Ah! would that bolt had not been spent! then, 
 lady, might I wear 
 
 A lasting token on my hand of one so passing 
 fair!’’ 
 
 ‘“Thou art a flatterer like the rest, but wouldst 
 thou take with me 
 
 A day of hunting in the wilds, beneath the 
 greenwood tree? 
 
 I know where most the pheasants feed, and 
 where the red deer herd, 
 
 And thou shouldst chase the nobler game, and 
 I bring down the bird.’’ 
 
 Now Albert in her quiver lays the arrow in its 
 place, 
 
 And wonders as he gazes on the beauty of her 
 face: 
 
 ‘Those hunting-grounds are far away, and, 
 lady, ’twere not meet, 
 
 That night, amid the wilderness, should over- 
 tame thy feet, *’ 
 
 ‘“Heed not the night; a summer lodge amid 
 the wild is mine,— 
 
 "Tis shadowed by the tulip-tree, ’tis mantled 
 by the vine; 
 
 The wild plum sheds its yellow fruit from fra- 
 grant thickets nigh, 
 
 And flowery prairies from the door stretch till 
 they meet the sky. 
 
218 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 ‘*There in the boughs that hide the roof the 
 mock-bird sits and sings, 
 
 And there the hang-bird’s brood within its 
 little hammock swings$ 
 
 A pebbly brook, where rustling winds among 
 the hopples sweep, 
 
 Shall lull thee till the morning sun looks in 
 upon thy sleep.’’ 
 
 Away, into the forest depths by pleasant paths 
 they go, 
 
 He with his rifle on his arm, the lady with her 
 bow, 
 
 Where cornels arch their cool dark boughs o’er 
 beds of wintergreen, 
 
 And never at his father’s door again was Albert 
 seen. 
 
 That night upon the woods came down a furi- 
 ous hurricane, 
 
 With howl of winds and roar of streams, and 
 beating of the rain; 
 
 The mighty thunder broke and drowned the 
 noises in its crash; 
 
 The old trees seemed to fight like fiends 
 beneath the lightning-flash. 
 
 Next day, within a mossy glen, ’mid moulder- 
 ing trunks were found , 
 
 The fragments of a human form upon the 
 bloody ground; 
 
 With bones from which the flesh was torn, and 
 locks of glossy hair; 
 
 They laid them in the place of graves, yet wist 
 not whose they were. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 219 
 
 And whether famished evening wolves had 
 mangled Albert so, 
 
 Or that strange dame so gay and fair were 
 some mysterious foe, 
 
 Or whether to that forest en a beyond the 
 mountains blue, 
 
 He went to dwell with her, the friends who 
 mourned him never knew. 
 
 “EARTH’S CHILDREN CLEAVE TO 
 EARTH”’ 
 
 Earth’s children cleave to Earth—her frail 
 Decaying children dread decay. 
 Yon wreath of mist that leaves the vale 
 And lessens in the morning ray; 
 Look, how, by mountain rivulet, 
 It lingers as it upward creeps, 
 And clings to fern and copsewood set 
 Along the green and dewy steeps: 
 Clings to the flowery kalmia, clings 
 To precipices fringed with grass, 
 Dark maples where the wood-thrush sings, 
 And bowers of fragrant sassafras. 
 Yet all in vain—it passes still 
 From hold to hold; it cannot stay, 
 And in the very beams that fill 
 The world with glory, wastes away, 
 Till, parting from the mountain’s brow, 
 It vanishes from human eye, 
 And that which sprung of earth is now 
 A portion of the glorious sky. 
 
220 _  BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 ae 
 
 THE HUNTER’S VISION 
 
 Upon a rock that, high and sheer, 
 Rose from the mountain’s breast, 
 A weary hunter of the deer 
 Had set him down to rest, 
 And bared to the soft summer air 
 His hot red brow and sweaty hair. 
 
 All dim in haze the mountains lay, 
 With dimmer vales between; 
 
 And rivers glimmered on their way, 
 By forests faintly seen; 
 
 While ever rose a murmuring sound, 
 
 From brooks below and bees around. 
 
 He listened, till he seemed to hear 
 A strain, so soft and low, 
 
 That whether in the mind or ear 
 The listener scarce might know. 
 With such a tone, so sweet, so mild, 
 The watching mother lulls her child. 
 
 ‘Thou weary huntsman,’’ thus it said, 
 ‘*“Thou faint with toil and heat, 
 
 The pleasant land of rest is spread 
 Before thy very feet, 
 
 And those whom thou wouldst gladly see 
 
 Are waiting tnere to welcome thee.” 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 221 
 
 He looked, and ’twixt the earth and sky. 
 Amid the noontide haze, 
 
 A shadowy region met his eye, 
 And grew beneath his gaze, 
 
 As if the vapors of the air 
 
 . Had gathered into shapes so fair. 
 
 Groves freshened as he looked, and flowers 
 Showed bright on rocky bank, 
 
 And fountains welled beneath the bowers, 
 Where deer and pheasant drank. 
 
 He saw the glittering streams, he heard 
 
 ‘The rustling bough and twittering bird. 
 
 And friends, the dead, in boyhood dear, 
 There lived and walked again, 
 
 And there was one who many a year 
 Within her grave had lain, 
 
 A fair young girl, the hamlet’s pride— 
 
 His heart was breaking when she died: 
 
 Bounding, as was her wont, she came 
 Right toward his resting-place, 
 
 And stretched her hand and called his name 
 With that sweet smiling face. 
 
 Forward with fixed and eager eyes, 
 
 The hunter leaned, in act to rise. 
 
 Forward he leaned, and headlong down 
 -Plunged from the craggy wall; 
 
 He saw the rocks, steep, stern and brown, 
 An instant, in his fall; : 
 
 A frightful instant—and no more, 
 
 The dream and life at once were o’er. 
 
te 
 
 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 A PRESENTIMENT 
 
 ‘‘Oh, father, let us hence—for hark, 
 A fearful murmur shakes the air; 
 
 The clouds are coming swift and dark ;— 
 What horrid shapes they wear! 
 
 A winged giant sails the sky; 
 
 Oh, father, father, let us fly!’’ 
 
 ‘*Hush, child; it is a grateful sound, 
 That beating of the summer shower; 
 Here, where the boughs hang close around, 
 We'll pass a pleasant hour, 
 Till the fresh wind, that brings the rain, 
 Has swept the broad heaven clear again.”’ 
 
 ‘‘Nay, father, let us haste—for see, 
 That horrid thing with horned brow,— 
 His wings o’erhang this very tree, 
 He scowls upon us now; 
 His huge black arm is lifted high; 
 Oh, father, father, let us fly!’’ 
 
 ‘“Hush, child;’’ but, as the father spoke, 
 Downward the livid firebolt came, 
 Close to his ear the thunder broke, 
 And, blasted by the flame, 
 The child lay dead; while dark and still. 
 Swept the grim cloud along the hill. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 223 
 
 THE CHILD’S FUNERAL 
 
 Fair is thy site, Sorrento, green thy shore, 
 Black crags behind thee pierce the clear blue 
 skies; 
 The sea, whose borderers ruled the world of 
 yore, 
 As clear and bluer still before thee lies. 
 
 Vesuvius smokes in sight, whose fount of fire, 
 Outgushing, drowned the cities on his steeps; 
 And murmuring Naples, spire o’ertopping 
 spire ; 
 Sits on the slope beyond where Virgil sleeps. 
 
 Here doth the earth, with flowers of every hue, 
 Heap her green breast when April suns are 
 bright, 
 Flowers of the morning-red, or ocean-blue, 
 Or like the mountain frost of silvery white. 
 
 Currents of fragrance, from the orange tree, 
 And sward of violets, breathing to and fro, 
 
 Mingle, and, wandering out upon the sea, 
 Refresh the idle boatman where they blow. 
 
 Yet even here, as under harsher climes, 
 Tears for the loved and early lost are shed; 
 That soft air saddens with the funeral chimes; 
 Those shining flowers are gathered for the 
 dead. 
 
224 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Here once a child, a smiling playful one, 
 
 All the day long caressing and caressed, 
 Died when its little tongue had just begun 
 
 To lisp the names of those it loved the best. 
 
 The father strove his struggling grief to quell, 
 The mother wept as mothers use to weep, 
 Two little sisters wearied them to tell 
 When their dear Carlo would awake from 
 sleep, *; | 
 
 Within an inner room his couch they spread, 
 His funeral couch; with mingled grief and 
 love, 
 They laid a crown of roses on his head, 
 And murmured, ‘‘Brighter is his crown 
 above.’ 
 
 They scattered round him, on the snowy sheet, 
 Laburnum’s strings of sunny-colored gems, 
 Sad hyacinths, and violets dim and sweet, 
 And orange blossoms on their dark green 
 stems. 
 
 And now the hour is coine; the priest is there; 
 Torches are lit and bells are tolled; they go, - 
 
 With solemn rites of blessing and of prayer, 
 To lay the little one in earth below. 
 
 The door is opened; hark! that quick glad cry; 
 Carlo has waked, has waked, and is at play! 
 The little sisters laugh and leap, and try 
 To climb the bed on which the infant lay 
 
BRYANT S POEMS 225 
 
 And there he sits alive, and gayly shakes 
 In his full hands, the blossoms red and white, 
 And smiles with winking eyes, like one who 
 wakes 
 From long deep slumbers at the morning 
 light. 
 
 THE DEATH OF SCHILLER 
 
 Tis said, when Schiller’s death drew nigh, 
 The wish possessed his mighty mind, 
 
 To wander forth wherever lie 
 The homes and haunts of human-kind. 
 
 Then strayed the poet, in his dreams, 
 By Rome and Egypt’s ancient graves; 
 Went up the New World’s forest-streams, 
 Stood in the Hindoo’s temple-caves; 
 
 Walked with the Pawnee, fierce and stark, 
 The sallow Tartar, midst his herds, 
 
 The peering Chinese, and the dark 
 False Malay uttering gentle words. 
 
 How could he rest? even then he trod 
 The threshold of the world unknown; 
 Already, from the seat of God, 
 A ray upon his garments shone ;— 
 
 Shone and awoke the strong desire 
 
 For love and knowledge reached not here 
 Till, freed by death, his soul of fire 
 
 Sprang to a fairer, ampler sphere, 
 15 Bryant’s 
 
226 
 
 [IN 
 
 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 MEMORY OF WILLIAM LEGGETT 
 
 The earth may ring, from shore to shore, 
 With echoes of a glorious name, | 
 But he, whose loss our tears deplore, 
 Has left behind him more than fame. 
 
 For when the death-frost came to lie 
 On Leggett’s warm and mighty heart 
 
 And quench his bold and friendly eye, 
 His spirit did not all depart. 
 
 The words of fire that from his pen 
 Were flung upon the fervid page, 
 
 Still move, still shake the hearts of men. 
 Amid a cold and coward age. 
 
 His love of truth, too warm, too strong 
 For Hope or Fear to chain or chill, 
 His hate of tyranny and wrong, 
 Burn in the breasts he kindled still. 
 
 —_—_—_——. 
 
 THE PAINTED CUP 
 
 The fresh savannas of the Sangamon 
 Here rise in gentle swells, and the long grass 
 Is mixed with rustling hazels. Scarlet tufts 
 Are glowing in the green, like flakes of fire; 
 The wanderers of prairie know them well, 
 And call that brilliant flower the Painted Cup. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 227 
 
 Now, if thou art a poet, tell me not 
 That these bright chalices were tinted thus 
 To hold the dew for fairies, when they meet 
 On moonlight evenings in the hazel bowers, 
 And dance till they are thirsty. Call not up, 
 Amid this fresh and virgin solitude, 
 The faded fancies of an elder world: 
 But leave these scarlet cups to spotted moths 
 Of June, and glistening flies, and humming- 
 birds, 
 To drink from, when on all these boundless 
 lawns 
 The morning sun looks hot. Or let the wind 
 O’erturn in sport their ruddy brims, and pour 
 A sudden shower upon the strawberry plant, 
 To swell the reddening fruit that even now 
 Breathes a slight fragrance from the sunny 
 slope. 
 
 But thou art of a gayer fancy. Well— 
 Let then the gentle Manitou of flowers, 
 Lingering amid the bloomy waste he loves, 
 Though all his swarthy worshippers are gone— 
 Slender and small, his rounded cheek all brown 
 And ruddy with the sunshine; let him come 
 On summer mornings, when the blossoms wake, 
 And patt with little hands the spiky grass; 
 And touching, with his cherry lips, the edge 
 Of these bright beakers, drain the gathered 
 
 dew. 
 
228 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 A DREAM 
 
 1 had a dream—a strange, wild dream— 
 Said a dear voice at early light; 
 
 And even yet its shadows seem 
 To linger in my waking sight. 
 
 Earth, green with spring, and fresh with dew, 
 And bright with morn, before me stood; 
 And airs just wakened softly blew 
 On the young blossoms of the wood. 
 
 Birds sang within the sprouting shade, 
 Bees hummed amid the whispering grass, 
 And children prattled as they played 7 
 Beside the rivulet’s dimpling grass. 
 
 Fast climbed the sun; the flowers were flown; 
 There played no children in the glen; 
 
 For some were gone, and some were grown 
 To blooming dames and bearded men. 
 
 ’Twas noon, ’twas summer; I beheld 
 Woods darkening in the flush of day, 
 
 And that bright rivulet spread and swelled, 
 A mighty stream, with creek and bay. 
 
 And here was love, and there was strife, 
 And mirthful shouts, and wrathful cries, 
 
 And strong men, struggling as for life, 
 With knotted limbs and angry eyes. 
 
BRYANT S POEMS 229 
 
 Now stooped the sun; the shades grew thin; 
 The rustling paths were piled with leaves; 
 
 And sunburnt groups were gathering in, 
 From the shorn field, its fruits and sheaves. 
 
 The river heaved with sullen sounds; 
 The chilly wind was sad with moans; 
 Black hearses passed, and burial-grounds 
 Grew thick with monumental stones. 
 
 Still waned the day; the wind that chased 
 The jagged clouds blew chiller yet; 
 
 The woods were stripped, the fields were waste; 
 The wintry sun was near its set. 
 
 And of the young, and strong, and fair, 
 A lonely remnant, gray and weak, 
 Lingered, and shivered to:the air 
 Of that bleak shore and water bleak. 
 
 Ah! age is drear, and death is cold! 
 I turned to thee, for thou wert near, 
 And saw thee withered, bowed, and old, 
 And woke all faint with sudden fear. 
 
 ’*Twas thus I heard the dreamer say, 
 And bade her clear her clouded brow; 
 
 ‘**For thou and I, since childhood’s day, 
 Have walked in such a dream till now. 
 
 ‘*Watch we in calmness, as they rise, 
 The changes of that rapid dream, 
 
 And note its lessons, till our eyes 
 Shall open in the morning beam.”’’ 
 
200 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 THE MAIDEN’S SORROW 
 
 Seven long years has the desert rain 
 Dropped on the clods that hide thy face; 
 Seven long years of sorrow and pain 
 I have thought of thy burial-place. 
 
 Thought of thy fate in the distant west, 
 Dying with none that loved thee near; 
 
 They who flung the earth on thy breast 
 Turned from the spot without a tear. 
 
 There, I think, on that lonely grave, 
 Violets spring in the soft May shower, 
 
 There, in the summer breezes, wave 
 Crimson phlox and moccasin flower. 
 
 There the turtles alight, and there 
 Feeds with her fawn the timid doe; 
 There, when the winter woods are bare, 
 
 Walks the wolf on the crackling snow. 
 
 Soon wilt thou wipe my tears away; 
 All my task upon earth is done; 
 My poor father, old and gray, 
 Slumbers beneath the churchyard stone. 
 
 In the dreams of my lonely bed, 
 Ever thy form before me seems; 
 All night long I talk with the dead, 
 
 All day long I think of my dreams. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 231 
 
 This deep wound that bleeds and aches, 
 This long pain, a sleepless pain— 
 When the Father my spirit takes, 
 I shall feel it no more again. 
 
 
 
 fab RETURN OF YOUTH 
 
 My friend, thou sorrowest for thy golden prime, 
 For thy fair youthful years too swift of flight; 
 Thou musest, with wet eyes, upon the time 
 Of cheerful hopes that filled the world with 
 light,— 
 Years when thy heart was bold, thy hand was 
 strong, 
 And quick the thought that moved Ue tongue 
 to speak, 
 And willing faith was thine, and scorn of wrong 
 Summoned the sudden crimson to thy cheek. 
 
 Thou lookest forward on the coming days, 
 shuddering to feel their shadow o’er thee 
 creep; , 
 A path, thick-set with changes sat decays, 
 Slopes downward to the place ae common 
 sleep; 
 And they who walked with thee in life’ s first 
 stage, 
 Leave one by one thy side, and, waiting near, 
 Thou seest the sad companions of thy age— 
 Dull love of rest, and weariness and fear. 
 
 Yet grieve thou not, nor think thy ees is 
 gone, 
 Nor deem that glorious season e’er could die 
 
232 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Thy pleasant youth, a little while withdrawn, 
 Waits on the horizon of a brighter sky; 
 Waits, like the morn, that folds her wing and’ 
 hides, 
 Till the slow stars bring back her dawning 
 hour; 
 Waits, like the vanished spring, that slumber: 
 ing bides 
 Her own sweet time to waken bud and flower. 
 
 There shall he welcome thee, when thou shalt 
 stand 
 On his bright morning hills, with smiles 
 more sweet 
 Than when at first he took thee by the hand, 
 Through the fair earth to lead thy tender 
 feet. 
 He shall bring back, but brighter, broader stil}, 
 Life’s early glory to thine eyes again, 
 Shall clothe thy spirit with new strength, and 
 fill 
 Thy leaping heart with warmer love than 
 then. 
 
 Hast thou not glimpses, in the twilight here, 
 Of mountains where immortal morn prevails? 
 Comes there not, through the silence, to thine 
 ear 
 A gentle rustling of the morning gales; 
 A murmur, wafted from that glorious shore, 
 Of streams, that water banks for ever fair. 
 And voices of the loved ones gone before, 
 More musical in that celestial air? 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 233 
 
 NOON 
 FROM AN UNFINISHED POEM 
 
 "Tis noon. At noon the Hebrew bowed the 
 knee 
 And worshipped, while the husbandman with- 
 drew 
 From the scorched field, and the wayfaring man 
 Grew faint, and turned aside by bubbling fount, 
 Or rested in the shadow of the palm. 
 
 _I, too, amid the overflow of day, 
 
 Behold the power which wields and cherishes 
 
 The frame of Nature. From this brow of rock 
 
 That overlooks the Hudson’s western marge, 
 
 I gaze upon the long array of groves, 
 
 The piles and gulfs of verdure drinking in 
 
 The grateful heats. They love the fiery sun; 
 
 Their broadening leaves grow glossier, and 
 their sprays 
 
 Climb as he looks upon them. In the midst, 
 
 The swelling river, into his green gulfs, 
 
 Unshadowed save by passing sails above, 
 
 Takes the redundant glory, and enjoys 
 
 The summer in his chilly bed. Coy flowers, 
 
 That would not open in the early light, 
 
 Push back their plaited sheaths. The rivulet’s 
 pool, 
 
 That darkly quivered all the morning long 
 
234 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 In the cool shade, now glimmers in the sun; 
 And o’er its surface shoots, and shoots again, 
 The glittering dragon-fly, and deep within 
 Run the brown water-beetles to and fro. 
 
 A silence, the brief sabbath of an hour, 
 Reigns o’er the fields; the laborer sits within 
 His dwelling; he has left his steers awhile, 
 Unyoked, to bite the herbage, and his dog 
 Sleeps stretched beside the door-stone in the 
 
 shade. 
 Now the gray marmot, with uplifted paws, 
 No more sits listening by his den, but steals 
 Abroad, in safety, to the clover-field, 
 And crops its juicy blossoms. All the while 
 A ceaseless murmur from the populous town 
 Swells o’er these solitudes: a mingled sound 
 Of jarring wheels, and iron hoofs that clash 
 Upon the stony ways, and hammer-clang, 
 And creak of engines lifting ponderous bulks, 
 And calls and cries, and tread of eager feet, 
 Innumerable, hurrying to and fro. 
 Noon, in that mighty mart of nations, brings 
 No pause to toil and care. With early day 
 Began the tumult, and shall only cease 
 When midnight, hushing one by one the souads 
 Of bustle, gathers the tired brood to rest. 
 
 Thus, in this feverish time, when love of gain 
 And luxury possess the hearts of men, 
 Thus is it with the noon of human life. 
 We, in our fervid manhood, in our strength 
 Of reason, we, with hurry, noise, and care, 
 Plan, toil, and strive, and pause not to refresh 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 238 
 
 Our spirits with the calm and beautiful 
 
 Of God’s harmonious universe, that won 
 Our youthful wonder; pause not to inquire 
 Why we are here; and what the reverence 
 Man owes to man, and what the mystery 
 That links us to the greater world, beside 
 Whose borders we but hover for a space. 
 
 ——E 
 
 THE CROWDED STREET 
 
 Let me move slowly through the street, 
 Filled with an ever-shifting train, 
 
 Amid the sound of steps that beat 
 The murmuring walks like autumn rain. 
 
 How fast the flitting figures come! 
 The mild,-the fierce, the stony face; 
 
 some bright with thoughtless smiles, and some 
 Where secret tears have left their trace. 
 
 They pass—to toil, to strife, to rest; 
 To halls in which the feast is spread; 
 
 To chambers where the funeral guest 
 In silence sits beside the dead. 
 
 And some to happy homes repair, 
 
 Where children, pressing cheek to cheek 
 With mute caresses shall declare 
 
 The tenderness they cannot speak. 
 
 And some, who walk in calmness here, 
 Shall shudder as they reach the door 
 Where one who made their dwelling dear, 
 
 Its flower, its light. is seen no more. 
 
236 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Youth, with pale cheek and slender frame, 
 And dreams of greatness in thine eye! 
 Go’st thou to build an early name, 
 Or early in the task to die? 
 
 Keen son of trade, with eager brow! 
 Who is now fluttering in thy snare? 
 
 Thy golden fortunes, tower they now, 
 Or melt the glittering spires in air? 
 
 Who of this crowd to-night shall tread 
 The dance till daylight gleams again? 
 
 Who sorrow o’er the untimely dead? 
 Who writhe in throes of mortal pain? 
 
 Some, famine-struck, shall think how long 
 The cold dark hours, how slow the light! 
 
 And some, who flaunt amid the throng, 
 Shall hide in dens of shame to-night. 
 
 Each, where his tasks or pleasures call, 
 They pass, and heed each other not; 
 
 There is who heeds, who holds them all, 
 In his large love and boundless thought. 
 
 These struggling tides of life that seem 
 In wayward, aimless course to tend, 
 Are eddies of the mighty stream 
 That rolls to its appointed end. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 237. 
 
 THE WHITE-FOOTED DEER 
 
 It was a hundred years ago, 
 When, by the woodland ways, 
 
 The traveler saw the wild deer drink, 
 Or crop the birchen sprays. 
 
 Beneath a hill, whose rocky side 
 O’erbrowed a grassy mead, 
 
 And fenced a cottage from the wind, 
 A deer was wont to feed. 
 
 She only came when on the cliffs 
 The evening moonlight lay, 
 
 And no man knew the secret haunts 
 In which she walked by day. 
 
 White were her feet, her forehead showed 
 A spot of silvery white, 
 
 That seemed to glimmer like a star 
 In autumn’s hazy night. 
 
 And here, when sang the whippoorwill 
 She cropped the sprouting leaves, 
 
 And here her rustling steps were heard 
 On still October eves. 
 
 But when the broad midsummer moon 
 Rose o’er that grassy lawn, 
 
 Beside the silver-footed deer 
 There grazed a spotted fawn. 
 
238 
 
 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 The cottage dame forbade her son 
 To aim the rifle here; 
 
 ‘*It were a sin,’’ she said, ‘‘to harm 
 Or fright that friendly deer. 
 
 ‘“This spot has been my pleasant home 
 Ten peaceful years and more; 
 
 And ever when the moonlight shines, 
 She feeds before our door. 
 
 ‘*The red men say that here she walked 
 A thousand moons ago; 
 
 They never raise the war-whoop here, 
 And never twang the bow. 
 
 ‘*T love to watch her as she feeds, 
 And think that all is well, 
 
 While such a gentle creature haunts 
 The place in which we dwell.’’ 
 
 The youth obeyed, and sought for game 
 In forests far away, 
 
 Where, deep in silence and in moss, 
 The ancient woodland lay. 
 
 But once, in autumn’s golden time, 
 He ranged the wild in vain, 
 
 Nor roused the pheasant nor the deer, 
 And wandered home again. 
 
 The crescent moon and crimson eve 
 Shone with a mingling lignt; 
 
 The deer, upon the grassy mead, 
 Was feeding full in sight. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 239 
 
 He raised the rifle to his eye, 
 And from the cliffs around 
 
 A sudden echo, shrill and sharp, 
 Gave back its deadly sound. 
 
 Away into the neighboring wood 
 The startled creature flew, 
 
 And crimson drops at morning lay 
 Amid the glimmering dew. 
 
 Next evening shone the waxing moon 
 As sweetly as before; 
 
 The deer upon grassy mead 
 Was seen again no more. 
 
 But, ere that crescent moon was old, 
 By night the red men came, 
 
 And burnt the cottage to the ground, 
 And slew the youth and dame. 
 
 Now woods have overgrown the mead 
 And hid the cliffs from sight; 
 
 There shrieks the hovering hawk at noon, 
 And prowls the fox at night. 
 
 
 
 THE WANING MOON 
 
 I’ve watched too late: the morn is near; 
 
 One look at God’s broad silent sky! 
 Oh, hopes and wishes vainly dear, 
 How in your very strength ye die! 
 
 Even while your glow is on the cheek, 
 And scarce the high pursuit begun, 
 
 The heart grows faint, the hand grows weak, 
 
 The task of life is left undone. 
 
240 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 See where, upon the horizon’s brim, 
 Lies the still cloud in gloomy bars; 
 
 The waning moon, all pale and dim 
 Goes up amid the eternal stars. 
 
 Late, in a flood of tender light, 
 
 She floated through the ethereal blue, 
 A softer sun, that shone all night 
 
 Upon the gathering beads of dew. 
 
 And still thou wanest, pallid moon! 
 The encroaching shadow grows apace; 
 
 Heaven’s everlasting watchers soon 
 Shall see thee blotted from thy place. 
 
 Oh, Night’s dethroned and crownless queen! 
 Well may thy sad, expiring ray 
 
 Be shed on those whose eyes have seen 
 Hope’s glorious visions fade away. 
 
 Shine thou for forms that once were bright, 
 For sages in the mind’s eclipse, 
 
 For those whose words were spells of might, 
 But falter now on stammering lips! 
 
 In thy decaying beam there lies 
 Full many a grave, on hill and plain, 
 Of those who closed their dying eyes 
 In grief that they had lived in vain. 
 
 Another night, and thou among 
 
 The spheres of heaven shalt cease to shine, 
 All rayless in the glittering throng 
 
 Whose luster late was quenched in thine. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 241 
 
 Yet soon a new and tender light 
 
 From out thy darkened orb shall beam, 
 And broaden till it shines all night 
 
 On glistening dew and glimmering stream. 
 
 
 
 THE UNKNOWN WAY 
 
 A burning sky is o’er me, 
 
 The sands beneath me glow, 
 _ As onward, onward, wearily, 
 In the sultry noon I go. 
 
 From the dusty path there opens, 
 Eastward, an unknown way; 
 
 Above its windings, pleasantly, 
 The woodland branches play. 
 
 A silvery brook comes stealing 
 From the shadow of its trees, 
 
 Where slender herbs of the forest stoop 
 Before the entering breeze. 
 
 Along those pleasant windings 
 I would my journey lay, 
 
 Where the shade is cool and the dew of night 
 Is not yet dried away. 
 
 Path of the flowery woodland! 
 Oh whither dost thou lead, 
 Wandering by grassy orchard grounds 
 Or by the open mead? 
 
 Goest thou by nestling cottage? 
 Goest thou by stately hall, 
 
 Where the broad elm droops, a leafy dome. 
 And woodbines flaunt on the wall? 
 
 16 Byrant’s 
 
242 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 By steeps where children gather 
 Flowers of the yet fresh year? 
 By lonely walks where lovers stray 
 
 Till the tender stars appear? 
 
 Or haply dost thou linger 
 On barren plains and bare, 
 
 Or clamber the bald mountain-side, 
 Into the thinner air? 
 
 Where they who journey upward 
 Walk in a weary track, 
 
 And oft upon the shady vale 
 With longing eyes look back? 
 
 I hear.asolemn murmur, 
 Aud, listening to the sound, 
 
 I know the voice of the mighty sea, 
 Beating his pebbly bound. 
 
 Dost thou, oh path of the woodland! 
 End where those waters roar, 
 
 Like human life, on a trackless beach, 
 With a boundless Sea before? 
 
 “OH MOTHER OF A MIGHTY RACE” 
 
 Oh mother of a mighty race, 
 
 Yet lovely in thy youthful grace! 
 
 The elder dames, thy haughty peers, 
 
 Admire and hate thy blooming years. 
 With words of shame 
 
 And taunts of scorn they join thy name. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 243 
 
 For on thy cheeks the glow is spread 
 
 That tints thy morning hills with red; 
 
 They step—the wild deer’s rustling feet, 
 
 Within thy woods, are not more fleet; 
 Thy hopeful eye 
 
 Is bright as thine own sunny sky. 
 
 Aye, let them rail—those haughty ones, 
 
 While safe thou dwellest with thy sons. 
 
 They do not know how loved thou art, 
 
 How many a fond and fearless heart 
 Would rise to throw 
 
 Its life between thee and the foe. 
 
 They know not, in their hate and pride, 
 
 What virtues with thy children bide; 
 
 How true, how good, thy graceful maids 
 
 Make bright, like flowers, the valley shades; 
 * What generous men 
 
 Spring, like thine oaks, by hill and glen. 
 
 What cordial welcomes greet the guest 
 
 By thy lone rivers of the west, 
 
 How faith is kept, and truth revered, 
 
 And man is loved, and God is feared, 
 In woodland homes, 
 
 And where the ocean-border foams. 
 
 There’s freedom at thy gates, and rest 
 
 For Earth’s down-trodden and opprest, 
 
 A shelter for the hunted head, 
 
 For the starved laborer toil and bread. 
 Power, at thy bounds, 
 
 Stops and calls back his baffled hounds. 
 
244 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 Oh fair young mother! on thy brow 
 
 Shall sit a nobler grace than now, 
 
 Deep in the brightness of thy skies © 
 
 The thronging years in glory rise, 
 And, as they fleet, 
 
 Drop strength and riches at thy feet. 
 
 Thine eye, with every coming hour, 
 
 Shall brighten, and thy form shall tower; 
 
 And when thy sisters, elder born, 
 
 Would brand thy name with words of scorn, 
 Before thine eye, 
 
 Upon their lips the taunt shall die. 
 
 THE LAND OF DREAMS 
 
 A mighty realm is the Land of Dreams, 
 With steeps that hang in the twilight sky, 
 
 And weltering oceans and trailing streams, 
 That gleam where the dusky valleys le. 
 
 But over its shadowy border flow 
 Sweet rays from the world of endless morn, 
 And the nearer mountains catch the glow, 
 And flowers in the nearer fields are born. 
 
 The souls of the happy dead repair, 
 From their bowers of light, to that bordering 
 land, 
 And walk in the fainter glory there, 
 With the souls of the living hand in hand 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 245 
 
 One calm sweet smile, in that shadowy sphere, 
 From eyes that open on earth no more— 
 
 One warning word from a voice once dear— 
 How they rise in the memory o’er and o’er! 
 
 Far off from those hills that shine with day, 
 And fields that bloom in the heavenly gales, 
 
 The Land of Dreams goes stretching away 
 To dimmer mountains and darker vales. 
 
 There lie the chambers of guilty delight; 
 There walk the specters of guilty fear; 
 
 And soft low voices, that float through the night, 
 Are whispering sin in the helpless ear. 
 
 Dear maid, in thy girlhood’s opening flower, 
 Scarce weaned from the love of childish 
 play! 
 The tears on whose cheeks are but the shower 
 That freshens the early blooms of May! 
 
 Thine eyes are closed, and over thy brow 
 Pass thoughtful shadows and joyous gleams, 
 And J know, by thy moving lips, that now 
 Thy spirit strays in the Land of Dreams. 
 
 Light-hearted maiden, oh, heed thy feet! 
 O keep where that beam of Paradise falls, 
 And only wander where thou may’st meet 
 The blessed ones from its shining walls. 
 
 So shalt thou come from the Land of Dreams, 
 With love and peace to this world of strife, 
 
 And the light that over that border streams 
 Shall lie on the path of thy daily life. 
 
246 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 THE BURIAL OF LOVE 
 
 Two dark-eyed maids, at shut of day, 
 Sat where a river rolled away, 
 
 With calm sad brows and raven hair, 
 And one was pale and both were fair. 
 
 Bring flowers, they sang, bring flowers unblown ; 
 Bring forest blooms of name unknown; 
 
 Bring budding sprays from wood and wild, 
 
 To strew the bier of Love, the child. 
 
 Close softly, fondly, while ye weep, 
 
 His eyes, that death may seem like sleep, 
 And fold his hands in sign of rest, 
 
 His waxen hands, across his breast. 
 
 And make his grave where violets hide, 
 Where star-flowers strew the rivulet’s side, 
 And blue-birds, in the misty spring, 
 
 Of cloudless skies and summer sing. 
 
 Place near him, as ye lay him low, 
 His idle shafts, his loosened bow, 
 The silken fillet that around 
 
 His waggish eyes in sport he wound. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 247 
 
 But we shall mourn him long, and miss 
 
 His ready smile, his ready kiss, 
 
 The patter of his little feet, 
 
 Sweet frowns and stammered phrases sweet; 
 
 And graver looks, serene and high, 
 
 A light of heaven in that young eye, 
 
 All these shall haunt us till the heart 
 Shall ache and ache—and tears will start. 
 
 The bow, the band shall fall to dust, 
 
 The shining arrows waste with rust, 
 
 And all of Love that earth can claim, 
 Be but a memory and a name. 
 
 Not thus his nobler part shall dwell, 
 
 A prisoner in this narrow cell; 
 
 But he whom now we hide from men 
 In the dark ground, shall live again. 
 
 Shall break these clods, a form of light, 
 With nobler mien and purer sight, 
 
 And in the eternal glory stand, 
 
 Highest and nearest God’s right hand. 
 
 
 
 “THE MAY-SUN SHEDS AN AMBER 
 jel TG id as 
 
 The May-sun sheds an amber light 
 On new-leaved woods and lawns between; 
 But she who, with a smile more bright, 
 Welcomed and watched the springing green, 
 Is in her grave, 
 Low in her grave. 
 
248 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 The fair white blossoms of the wood 
 In groups beside the pathway stand; 
 But one, the gentle and the good, 
 Who cropped them with a fairer hand, 
 Is in her grave, 
 Low in her grave. 
 
 Upon the woodland’s morning airs 
 The small birds’ mingled notes are flung; 
 But she, whose voice, more sweet than theirs, 
 Once bade me listen, while they sung, 
 Is in her grave, 
 Low in her grave. 
 
 That music of the early year 
 Brings tears of anguish to my eyes; 
 My heart aches when the flowers appear; 
 For then I think of her who lies 
 Within her grave, 
 Low in her grave. 
 
 THE VOICE OF AUTUMN 
 
 There comes, from yonder height, 
 A soft repining sound, 
 Where forest leaves are bright 
 And fall, like flakes of light, 
 To the ground. 
 
 It is the autumn breeze, 
 That, lightly floating on, 
 Just skims the weedy leas, 
 Just stirs the glowing trees, 
 And is gone, 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS 249 
 
 He moans by sedgy brook, 
 And visits, with a sigh, 
 The last pale flowers that look, 
 From out their sunny nook, 
 At the sky. 
 
 O’er shouting children flies 
 
 That light October wind, 
 And, kissing cheeks and eyes, 
 
 He leaves their merry cries 
 Far behind. 
 
 And wanders on to make 
 That soft uneasy sound 
 By distant wood and lake, 
 Where distant fountains break 
 From the ground. 
 
 No bower where maidens dwell 
 Can win amoment’s stay, © 
 Nor fair untrodden dell; 
 He sweeps the upland swell, 
 And away. 
 
 Mourn’st thou thy homeless state? 
 Oh soft, repining wind! 
 That early seek’st and late 
 The rest it is thy fate 
 Not to find. 
 
 Not on the mountain’s breast, 
 Not on the ocean’s shore, 
 In all the East and West:— 
 The wind that stops to rest 
 Is no more. 
 
250 BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 By valleys, woods, and springs, 
 No wonder thou shouldst grieve 
 For all the glorious things 
 Thou touchest with thy wings 
 And must leave. 
 
 THE CONQUEROR’S GRAVE 
 
 Within this lowly grave a Conqueror lies, 
 And yet the monument proclaims it not, 
 Nor round the sleeper’s name hath chisel 
 wrought 
 The emblems of a fame that never dies, 
 Ivy and amaranth in a graceful sheaf, 
 Twined with the laurel’s fair, imperial leaf. 
 A simple name alone, 
 To the great world unknown, 
 Is graven here, and wild flowers, rising round, 
 Meek meadow-sweet and violets of the ground, 
 Lean lovingly against the humble stone. 
 
 Here, in the quiet earth, they laid apart 
 No man of iron mould and bloody hands, 
 Who sought to wreak upon the cowering lands 
 The passions that consumed his restless heart; 
 But one of tender spirit and delicate frame 
 Gentlest in mien and mind, 
 Of gentle womankind, 
 Timidly shrinking from the breath of blame; 
 One in whose eyes the smile of kindness made 
 Its haunt, like flowers by sunny brooks in 
 May, 
 Yet, at the thought of others’ pain, a shade 
 Of sweeter sadness chased the smile away. 
 
BRYANT’S POEMS, ,,, , , O51 | 
 
 Nor deem that, when the hand that moulders / 
 here 
 Was raised in menace, realms were chilled 
 with fear, 
 And armies mustered at the sign, as when 
 Clouds rise on clouds before the rainy East,— 
 Gray captains leading bands of veteran men 
 And fiery youths to be the vulture’s feast. 
 Not thus were waged the mighty wars that gave 
 The victory to her who fills this grave; 
 Alone her task was wrought, 
 Alone the battle fought; 
 Through that long strife her constant hope 
 was staid 
 On God alone, nor looked for other aid. 
 
 She met the hosts of sorrow with a look 
 That altered not beneath the frown they 
 
 wore, 
 And soon the lowering brood were tamed, and 
 
 took, 
 Meekly, her gentle rule, and frowned no 
 
 more. 
 
 Her soft hand put aside the assaults of wrath, 
 And calmly broke in twain 
 The fiery shafts of pain, 
 
 And rent the nets of passion from her path. 
 By that victorious hand despair was slain. 
 With love she vanquished hate and overcame 
 
 Evil with good, in her Great Master’s name. 
 
 Her glory is not of this shadowy state, 
 Glory that with the fleeting season dies; 
 But when she entered at the sapphire gate 
 
252, BRYANT’S POEMS 
 
 What joy was radiant in celestial eyes! 
 How heaven’s bright depths with sounding 
 welcomes rung, 
 And flowers of heaven by shining hands were 
 flung! 
 And He who, long before, 
 Pain, scorn, and sorrow bore, 
 The Mighty Sufferer, with aspect sweet, 
 Smiled on the timid stranger from his seat; 
 He who returning, glorious, from the grave, 
 Dragged Death, disarmed, in chains, a crouch- 
 ing slave. 
 
 See, as I linger here, the sun grows low; 
 Cool airs are murmuring that the night is 
 near. 
 Oh gentle sleeper, from thy grave I go 
 Consoled though sad, in hope and yet in fear. 
 Brief is the time, I know, 
 The warfare scarce begun; 
 Yet all may win the triumphs thou hast won. 
 Still flows the fount whose waters strengthened 
 thee; 
 The victors’ names are yet too few to fill 
 Heaven’s mighty roll; the glorious armory, 
 That ministered to thee, is open still. 
 
We are the Sole publishers of Ella Wheeler Wilcor’s|Books | 
 
 The Poetical and Prose Works of 
 
 FILA WHEELER WILCOX 
 
 Mrs. Wilcox’s writings have been the inspiration of many young 
 men and women. Her hopeful, practical, masterful views of life 
 give the reader new courage in the very reading and are a wholesome 
 spur to flagging effort. Words of truth so vital that they live in the 
 reader’s memory and cause him to think—to his own betterment and 
 the lasting improvement of his own work in the world, in whatever 
 line it lies—flow from this talented woman’s pen. 
 
 MAURINE 
 
 Is a love story told in exquisite verse. ‘An ideal poem about 
 as trueand lovable a woman as ever poet created.’ It has 
 repeatedly been compared with Owen Meredith's Luczde. In 
 point of human interest it excels that noted story. 
 
 ‘Maurine’’ is issued in an edition de luxe, where the more 
 important incidents of the story are portrayed by means of 
 photographic studies from life. 
 
 Presentation Edition, 12mo, olive green cloth............. $1.00 
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 De Luxe New Illustrated Edition, white vali. gold top, 2.00 
 
 POEMS OF POWER. 
 
 New and revised edition. This beautiful volume contains 
 more than one hundred new poems, displaying this popular poet’s 
 well- known taste, cultivation, and originality. ‘The author 
 says: ‘The final ‘word in the title of the volume refers to the 
 Divine power in every human being, the recognition of which 
 is the secret of all successand happiness. Itis this idea which 
 many of the verses endeavor to inculcate and to illustrate. 
 
 ‘The lines of Mrs. Wilcox, show both sweetness “and 
 strength.’’-Chicago American. ‘Ella Wheeler Wilcox has a 
 strong grip upon ithe affections of thousands all over the 
 world. Her productions are read to-day just as eagerly as 
 they were when her fame was new, no other divinity having 
 yet risen to take her place.’’—Chicazo Record-Herald. 
 
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 THREE WOMEN. A story IN VERSE. 
 
 “THREE WOMEN is the best thing I have ever done."'—£l/a 
 Wheeler Wilcox. 
 This marvelous dramatic poem will compel instant praise 
 hecause it touches every note in the scale of human emotion, 
 is intensely interesting, and will be read with sincere relish 
 aud admiration. 
 Presentation Edition, 12mo, light redcloth............. .--91.00 
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POEMS OF PLEASURE. 
 
 Many of the best poetic creations of Ella Wheeler Wilcox 
 are to be found in this charming collection. Besides many 
 admirable specimens of romantic verse, there are several 
 poems of rare beauty, dealing with every-day topics. Every 
 line of these poems pulsates with life and throbs with emotion. 
 
 “Mrs. Wilcox is an artist with a touch that reminds one 
 of Byron's impassionate strains.’’—Paris Register. 
 
 ‘Everything that she writes has the mark of her unique, 
 powerful personality impressed upon it, and this volume will 
 not be a disappointment to those acquainted with her.”—Wew 
 York Press. 
 
 “The book is replete with good things and, though a book 
 of fewer than two hundred pages, it is worth whole reams of 
 the sentimentalism flourishing under the misnomer of liter- 
 ature.’’— Western Bookseller. : 
 
 _ ‘Mrs, Wilcox takes her raptures with a full heart, revel- 
 
 ing in blisses and draining sorrows deeply; not morbidly but 
 
 hopefully. Skeptic as she is of all formal creeds, she does 
 
 not become cynical or pessimistic, but makes a glad religion 
 
 vas of evolution and human fellowship.’—Mew York Daily 
 ews, 
 
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 POEMS OF PASSION, 
 
 mtra Wheeler Wilcox is known as the greatest living poet 
 of passion. To her the human heart seems tu have revealed 
 its mysteries, for she has the power to picture love in all its 
 -noods and variations as no other has done since Byron. 
 
 “Only a woman of genius could produce such a remark- 
 able work.’’—Jllustrated London News. 
 
 Beside many others, there are some fifty poems which 
 treat entirely of that emotion which has been denominated 
 ‘the grand passion’’—love. _Among the most popular poems 
 in the book are Delilah, Ad Finem, Conversion, and Communism. 
 These vibrant poems have attained a reputation that is above 
 and beyond criticism. 
 
 “Her name is a household word. Her great power lies in 
 depicting human emotions; and in handling that grandest of 
 all passions—love, she wields the pen of a master.’’—Saturday 
 Pecord, 
 
 Many thousands of the book have been issued in the plain 
 edition. The author’s numerous admirers called for a de luxe 
 BODES IUE and in the New Illustrated Edition the demand 
 ismet bya 
 
 BEAUTIFULLY PRODUCED AND CHARMINGLY EMBELLISHED EDITION 
 
 certain to satisfy the most fastidious taste. Inits newt form, 
 the book is sure to find additional favor. 
 
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EVERY-DAY THOUGHTS—lIn Prose 
 and Verse. 
 
 Her latest, largest and greatest prose work. This brilliant 
 
 work consists of a series of forceful, logical and fascinating 
 “talks” to eyery member of the household, in which the 
 author fearlessly, but with delicacy, discusses every-day sub- 
 jects, and directs attention to those evils which menace the 
 peace and safety of the home. *‘Every-day Thoughts’’ is not a 
 mere book of advice, neither does it attempt'to preach, but it 
 contains more good counsel and wholesome moral lessons 
 than are to be found in the average sermon. 
 _ “These thoughts, lofty and uplifting, are stated with viril- 
 ity, both in prose and verse. The noble sentiments expressed 
 in this volume will widen the circle of her admirers.’’—oches- 
 ter Times. 
 
 “Few people are so good as not to be made better by a stu- 
 dious perusal of this useful and interesting book, which is, in 
 brief, a short and vigorous dissertation on moral conduct and the 
 springs of right living. Mrs. Wilcox’s latest publicatien is a 
 wortby addition to the best works of moral philosophy and her 
 treatise deserves wide reading.”’’—Wew York Daily News. 
 
 Presentation Edition, 12mo, gray cloth, gold top.......... $1.50 
 De Luxe Edition, white vellum, gold top.................0.. 2.00 
 
 KINGDOM OF LOVE, AND OTHER POEMS. 
 
 2 A magnificent collection of poems suitable for recitations and read- 
 ings, true to the very best there is in human nature. 
 
 In the preface to this collection, the author says: “I am 
 constantly urged by readers and impersonators to furnish 
 them with verses for recitation. In response to this ever- 
 increasing demand, I haVe selected for this volume the poems 
 which seem suitable for such a purpose. In making my col- 
 lection of them. I have been obliged to use, not those which 
 are among my best efforts in a literary or artistic sense, but 
 pavet eich contain the best dramatic possibilities for profes- 
 sionals. 
 
 ‘Her fame has reached all parts of the world, and her pop- 
 ularity seems to grow with each succeeding year.’’—American 
 Bookseller. 
 
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 AN AMBITIOUS MAN—Prose. 
 
 A realistic novel of the modern school of fiction. “ithough 
 the plot borders on the sensational, the motive of the story is 
 a good one. It teaches that hereditary tendencies can be 
 overcome; that one can conquer passion and impulse by the 
 use of the divine inheritance of Will, and compel public re- 
 spect by lofty ideals; in other words. that one may rise on the 
 “‘stepping-stones of a dead self to higher things.”’ Mrs. Wilcox 
 is a successful novel-writer as well as apoet, and this story is 
 another evidence of her wide range of thought. “In ‘An 
 Ambitious Man’ the central figure is a woman, who becomes 
 chastened.through suffering and purified through sin.”’ f 
 
 “Vivid realism stands forth from every page of this fasci- 
 nating and interesting book.’’—£very Day. 
 
 Presentation Edition. green silk cloth... »- +... ~...--w1-O7 
 
AN ERRING WOMAN’S LOVE. 
 
 , , There is always a fascination in Mrs. Wilcox’s verse, bu 
 in these beautiful examples of her genius she shows a wonder- 
 ful knowledge of the human heart. 
 
 “Ella Wheeler Wilcox has impressed many thousands of 
 people with the extreme beauty of her philosophy and the 
 exceeding usefulness of her point of view.” —Boston Globe. 
 
 Mrs. Wilcox stands at the head of feminine writers, and 
 her verses and essays are more widely copied and read than 
 those of any other American literary woman.’—WNew York 
 
 orld. “Power and pathos characterize this magnificent 
 poem. A deep understanding of life and an intense sympathy 
 are beautifully expressed.""—Chicago Tribune. 
 Presentation Edition, 12mo, light brown cloth 
 De Luxe Edition, white vellum, gold top...........0..000 . 1.50 
 
 MEN, WOMEN AND EMOTIONS. 
 
 A skilful anatysis of social habits, customs and follies. A 
 common-sense view of life from its varied standpoints....full 
 of sage advice. : ¢ ; 
 
 “These essays tend to meet difficulties that arise in almost 
 every life......Full of sound and helpful admonition, and is 
 sure to assist in smoothing the rough ways of life wherever it 
 be read and heeded.” —FPittsburg Times. 
 12mo, heavy act rcpahe plegegy PTE $0.50 
 Presentation Edition, dark brown Cloth..........sceceeees 1.00 
 
 THE BEAUTIFUL LAND OF NOD. 
 
 _ A collection of poems, songs, stories, and allegories dealing 
 with child life. The work is profusely illustrated with dainty 
 line engravings and photographs from life. b , 
 
 “The delight of the nursery; the foremost baby’s book in 
 the world.’’—W. O. Picayune. 
 Quarto, sage green cloth.............. Ros BA 
 
 AROUND THE YEAR WITH 
 ELLA WHEELER WILCOX 
 
 A Birthday Book Compiled from the 
 Poetical and Prose Writings of 
 Ella Wheeler Wilcox 
 
 The many admirers of Mrs. Wilcox will welcome this vol- 
 ume with genuine enthusiasm. It epitomizes her inspiring 
 optimistic philosophy with an apposite quotation for every 
 day in the circling year. GAN , : 
 
 The book is a small quarto in size, beautifully printed on 
 excellent paper with red-line borders, and handsomely peas 
 in cloth, with exquisite half-tone illustrations prefacing eac 
 month, and with author’s portrait. 
 
 Presentation Edition, olive green Cloth.... ccecceccecsecess $1.00 
 De Luxe Edition, white vellum, gold top................+-- 1.90 
 Autograph Edition, full leather, gold top.......-.e..+.s.+. 2.00 
 
 WwW. B. CONKEY COMPANY, Hammond, ind.