Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant

IN 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 lieOn 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 penWere 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 strongFor Hope or Fear to chain or chill,His hate of tyranny and wrong,Burn in the breasts he kindled still.

AN EVENING REVERY.33

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 outIn the red west. The green blade of the groundHas risen, and herds have cropped it; the young twigHas spread its plaited tissues to the sun;Flowers of the garden and the waste have blownAnd withered; seeds have fallen upon the soil,From bursting cells, and in their graves awaitTheir resurrection. Insects from the poolsHave filled the air awhile with humming wings,That now are still for ever; painted mothsHave wandered the blue sky, and died again;The mother-bird hath broken for her broodTheir prison shell, or shoved them from the nest,Plumed for their earliest flight. In bright alcoves,In woodland cottages with barky walls,In noisome cells of the tumultuous town,Mothers have clasped with joy the new-born babe.Graves by the lonely forest, by the shoreOf rivers and of ocean, by the waysOf the thronged city, have been hollowed outAnd filled, and closed. This day hath parted friendsThat ne'er before were parted; it hath knitNew friendships; it hath seen the maiden plightHer faith, and trust her peace to him who longHad wooed; and it hath heard, from lips which lateWere eloquent of love, the first harsh word,That told the wedded one her peace was flown.Farewell to the sweet sunshine! One glad dayIs 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 twineFlowers for the bride. The mother from the eyesOf her sick infant shades the painful light,And sadly listens to his quick-drawn breath.O thou great Movement of the Universe,Or Change, or Flight of Time – for ye are one!That bearest, silently, this visible sceneInto night's shadow and the streaming raysOf starlight, whither art thou bearing me?I feel the mighty current sweep me on,Yet know not whither. Man foretells afarThe courses of the stars; the very hourHe knows when they shall darken or grow bright;Yet doth the eclipse of Sorrow and of DeathCome unforewarned. Who next, of those I love,Shall pass from life, or, sadder yet, shall fallFrom virtue? Strife with foes, or bitterer strifeWith friends, or shame and general scorn of men —Which who can bear? – or the fierce rack of pain —Lie within my path? Or shall the yearsPush me, with soft and inoffensive pace,Into the stilly twilight of my age?Or do the portals of another lifeEven now, while I am glorying in my strength,Impend around me? Oh! beyond that bourne,In the vast cycle of being which beginsAt that dread threshold, with what fairer formsShall the great law of change and progress clotheIts workings? Gently – so have good men taught —Gently, and without grief, the old shall glideInto the new; the eternal flow of things,Like a bright river of the fields of heaven,Shall journey onward in perpetual peace.

THE PAINTED CUP

The fresh savannas of the SangamonHere rise in gentle swells, and the long grassIs mixed with rustling hazels. Scarlet tuftsAre glowing in the green, like flakes of fire;34The wanderers of the prairie know them well,And call that brilliant flower the Painted Cup.Now, if thou art a poet, tell me notThat these bright chalices were tinted thusTo hold the dew for fairies, when they meetOn 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 mothsOf June, and glistening flies, and humming-birds,To drink from, when on all these boundless lawnsThe morning sun looks hot. Or let the windO'erturn in sport their ruddy brims, and pourA sudden shower upon the strawberry-plant,To swell the reddening fruit that even nowBreathes 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 brownAnd ruddy with the sunshine; let him comeOn summer mornings, when the blossoms wake,And part with little hands the spiky grass,And touching, with his cherry lips, the edgeOf these bright beakers, drain the gathered dew.

A DREAM

I had a dream – a strange, wild dream —Said a dear voice at early light;And even yet its shadows seemTo 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 blewOn the young blossoms of the wood.Birds sang within the sprouting shade,Bees hummed amid the whispering grass,And children prattled as they playedBeside the rivulet's dimpling glass.Fast climbed the sun: the flowers were flown,There played no children in the glen;For some were gone, and some were grownTo blooming dames and bearded men.'Twas noon, 'twas summer: I beheldWoods 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.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-groundsGrew thick with monumental stones.Still waned the day; the wind that chasedThe jagged clouds blew chiller yet;The woods were stripped, the fields were waste;The wintry sun was near his set.And of the young, and strong, and fair,A lonely remnant, gray and weak,Lingered, and shivered to the airOf 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 eyesShall open in the morning beam."

THE ANTIQUITY OF FREEDOM

Here are old trees, tall oaks, and gnarléd pines,That stream with gray-green mosses; here the groundWas never trenched by spade, and flowers spring upUnsown, and die ungathered. It is sweetTo linger here, among the flitting birdsAnd leaping squirrels, wandering brooks, and windsThat shake the leaves, and scatter, as they pass,A fragrance from the cedars, thickly setWith 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.O Freedom! thou art not, as poets dream,A fair young girl, with light and delicate limbs,And wavy tresses gushing from the capWith which the Roman master crowned his slaveWhen he took off the gyves. A bearded man,Armed to the teeth, art thou; one mailéd handGrasps the broad shield, and one the sword; thy brow,Glorious in beauty though it be, is scarredWith tokens of old wars; thy massive limbsAre strong with struggling. Power at thee has launchedHis bolts, and with his lightnings 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-wallsFall outward; terribly thou springest forth,As springs the flame above a burning pile,And shoutest to the nations, who returnThy 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 drawThe earliest furrow 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 meetsThe grave defiance of thine elder eye,The usurper trembles in his fastnesses.Thou shalt wax stronger with the lapse of yearsBut he shall fade into a feebler age —Feebler, yet subtler. He shall weave his snaresAnd spring them on thy careless steps, and clapHis withered hands, and from their ambush callHis hordes to fall upon thee. He shall sendQuaint maskers, wearing fair and gallant formsTo catch thy gaze, and uttering graceful wordsTo charm thy ear; while his sly imps, by stealth,Twine round thee threads of steel, light thread on threadThat grow to fetters; or bind down thy armsWith chains concealed in chaplets. Oh! not yetMayst thou unbrace thy corslet, nor lay byThy sword; nor yet, O Freedom! close thy lidsIn slumber; for thine enemy never sleeps,And thou must watch and combat till the dayOf the new earth and heaven. But wouldst thou restAwhile from tumult and the frauds of men,These old and friendly solitudes inviteThy visit. They, while yet the forest-treesWere young upon the unviolated earth,And yet the moss-stains on the rock were new,Beheld thy glorious childhood, and rejoiced.

THE MAIDEN'S SORROW

Seven long years has the desert rainDropped on the clods that hide thy face;Seven long years of sorrow and painI 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 breastTurned 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, waveCrimson phlox and moccasin-flower.There the turtles alight, and thereFeeds 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.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.

THE 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 timeOf cheerful hopes that filled the world with light —Years when thy heart was bold, thy hand was strong,And quick the thought that moved thy tongue to speak,And willing faith was thine, and scorn of wrongSummoned 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 and decays,Slopes downward to the place of 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 youth is gone,Nor deem that glorious season e'er could die.Thy pleasant youth, a little while withdrawn,Waits on the horizon of a brighter sky;Waits, like the morn, that folds her wings and hidesTill the slow stars bring back her dawning hour;Waits, like the vanished spring, that slumbering bidesHer own sweet time to waken bud and flower.There shall he welcome thee, when thou shalt standOn his bright morning hills, with smiles more sweetThan 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 still,Life's early glory to thine eyes again,Shall clothe thy spirit with new strength, and fillThy 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 earA gentle rustling of the morning gales;A murmur, wafted from that glorious shore,Of streams that water banks forever fair,And voices of the loved ones gone before,More musical in that celestial air?

A HYMN OF THE SEA

The sea is mighty, but a mightier swaysHis restless billows. Thou, whose hands have scoopedHis boundless gulfs and built his shore, thy breath,That moved in the beginning o'er his face,Moves o'er it evermore. The obedient wavesTo 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 realmsWatch its broad shadow warping on the wind,And in the dropping shower, with gladness hearThy promise of the harvest. I look forthOver the boundless blue, where joyouslyThe bright crests of innumerable wavesGlance to the sun at once, as when the handsOf a great multitude are upward flungIn acclamation. I behold the shipsGliding from cape to cape, from isle to isle,Or stemming toward far lands, or hastening homeFrom the Old World. It is thy friendly breezeThat 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.But who shall bide thy tempest, who shall faceThe blast that wakes the fury of the sea?O God! thy justice makes the world turn pale,When on the armèd fleet, that royallyBears down the surges, carrying war, to smiteSome city, or invade some thoughtless realm,Descends the fierce tornado. The vast hulksAre whirled like chaff upon the waves; the sailsFly, rent like webs of gossamer; the mastsAre snapped asunder; downward from the decks,Downward are slung, into the fathomless gulf,Their cruel engines; and their hosts, arrayedIn trappings of the battle-field, are whelmedBy whirlpools, or dashed dead upon the rocks.Then stand the nations still with awe, and pauseA moment, from the bloody work of war.These restless surges eat away the shoresOf earth's old continents; the fertile plainWelters in shallows, headlands crumble down,And the tide drifts the sea-sand in the streetsOf the drowned city. Thou, meanwhile, afarIn the green chambers of the middle sea,Where broadest spread the waters and the lineSinks deepest, while no eye beholds thy work,Creator! thou dost teach the coral-wormTo lay his mighty reefs. From age to age,He builds beneath the waters, till, at last,His bulwarks overtop the brine, and checkThe long wave rolling from the southern poleTo break upon Japan35 Thou bidd'st the fires,That smoulder under ocean, heave on highThe new-made mountains, and uplift their peaks,A place of refuge for the storm-driven bird.The birds and wafting billows plant the riftsWith herb and tree; sweet fountains gush; sweet airsRipple the living lakes that, fringed with flowers,Are gathered in the hollows. Thou dost lookOn thy creation and pronounce it good.Its valleys, glorious in their summer green,Praise thee in silent beauty, and its woods,Swept by the murmuring winds of ocean, joinThe murmuring shores in a perpetual hymn.

NOON

FROM AN UNFINISHED POEM'Tis noon. At noon the Hebrew bowed the kneeAnd worshipped36, while the husbandmen withdrewFrom the scorched field, and the wayfaring manGrew 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 cherishesThe frame of Nature. From this brow of rockThat overlooks the Hudson's western marge,I gaze upon the long array of groves,The piles and gulfs of verdure drinking inThe grateful heats. They love the fiery sun;Their broadening leaves grow glossier, and their spraysClimb 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 enjoysThe 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 longIn the cool shade, now glimmers in the sun;And o'er its surface shoots, and shoots again,The glittering dragon-fly, and deep withinRun the brown water-beetles to and fro.A silence, the brief sabbath of an hour,Reigns o'er the fields; the laborer sits withinHis dwelling; he has left his steers awhile,Unyoked, to bite the herbage, and his dogSleeps stretched beside the door-stone in the shade.Now the gray marmot, with uplifted paws,No more sits listening by his den, but stealsAbroad, in safety, to the clover-field,And crops its juicy blossoms. All the whileA ceaseless murmur from the populous townSwells o'er these solitudes: a mingled soundOf jarring wheels, and iron hoofs that clashUpon 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, bringsNo pause to toil and care. With early dayBegan the tumult, and shall only ceaseWhen midnight, hushing one by one the soundsOf bustle, gathers the tired brood to rest.Thus, in this feverish time, when love of gainAnd luxury possess the hearts of men,Thus is it with the noon of human life.We, in our fervid manhood, in our strengthOf reason, we, with hurry, noise, and care,Plan, toil, and strive, and pause not to refreshOur spirits with the calm and beautifulOf God's harmonious universe, that wonOur youthful wonder; pause not to inquireWhy we are here; and what the reverenceMan owes to man, and what the mysteryThat links us to the greater world, besideWhose borders we but hover for a space.

THE CROWDED STREET

Let me move slowly through the street,Filled with an ever-shifting train,Amid the sound of steps that beatThe murmuring walks like autumn rain.How fast the flitting figures come!The mild, the fierce, the stony face;Some bright with thoughtless smiles, and someWhere 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 guestIn silence sits beside the dead.And some to happy homes repair,Where children, pressing cheek to cheek,With mute caresses shall declareThe tenderness they cannot speak.And some, who walk in calmness here,Shall shudder as they reach the doorWhere one who made their dwelling dear,Its flower, its light, is seen no more.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 treadThe dance till daylight gleam again?Who sorrow o'er the untimely dead?Who writhe in throes of mortal pain?Some, famine-struck, shall think how longThe 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 seemIn wayward, aimless course to tend,Are eddies of the mighty streamThat rolls to its appointed end.

THE WHITE-FOOTED DEER.37

It was a hundred years ago,When, by the woodland ways,The traveller saw the wild-deer drink,Or crop the birchen sprays.Beneath a hill, whose rocky sideO'erbrowed a grassy mead,And fenced a cottage from the wind,A deer was wont to feed.She only came when on the cliffsThe evening moonlight lay,And no man knew the secret hauntsIn which she walked by day.White were her feet, her forehead showedA spot of silvery white,That seemed to glimmer like a starIn autumn's hazy night.And here, when sang the whippoorwill,She cropped the sprouting leaves,And here her rustling steps were heardOn still October eves.But when the broad midsummer moonRose o'er that grassy lawn,Beside the silver-footed deerThere grazed a spotted fawn.The cottage dame forbade her sonTo aim the rifle here;"It were a sin," she said, "to harmOr fright that friendly deer."This spot has been my pleasant homeTen peaceful years and more;And ever, when the moonlight shines,She feeds before our door."The red-men say that here she walkedA thousand moons ago;They never raise the war-whoop here,And never twang the bow."I love to watch her as she feeds,And think that all is wellWhile such a gentle creature hauntsThe place in which we dwell."The youth obeyed, and sought for gameIn forests far away,Where, deep in silence and in moss,The ancient woodland lay.But once, in autumn's golden timeHe ranged the wild in vain,Nor roused the pheasant nor the deer,And wandered home again.The crescent moon and crimson eveShone with a mingling light;The deer, upon the grassy mead,Was feeding full in sight.He raised the rifle to his eye,And from the cliffs aroundA sudden echo, shrill and sharp,Gave back its deadly sound.Away, into the neighboring wood,The startled creature flew,And crimson drops at morning layAmid the glimmering dew.Next evening shone the waxing moonAs brightly as before;The deer upon the grassy meadWas 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.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 nightUpon the gathering beads of dew.And still thou wanest, pallid moon!The encroaching shadow grows apace;Heaven's everlasting watchers soonShall see thee blotted from thy place.Oh, Night's dethroned and crownless queen!Well may thy sad, expiring rayBe shed on those whose eyes have seenHope'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 liesFull many a grave on hill and plain,Of those who closed their dying eyesIn grief that they had lived in vain.Another night, and thou amongThe spheres of heaven shalt cease to shine,All rayless in the glittering throngWhose lustre late was quenched in thine.Yet soon a new and tender lightFrom out thy darkened orb shall beam,And broaden till it shines all nightOn glistening dew and glimmering stream.

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 dieIn autumn's chilly showers,The winter fountains gush for thee,Till May brings back the flowers.Oh Stream of Life! the violet springsBut 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 flowedThe dust alone remains.

THE UNKNOWN WAY

A burning sky is o'er me,The sands beneath me glow,As onward, onward, wearily,In the sultry morn I go.From the dusty path there opens,Eastward, an unknown way;Above its windings, pleasantly,The woodland branches play.A silvery brook comes stealingFrom the shadow of its trees,Where slender herbs of the forest stoopBefore the entering breeze.Along those pleasant windingsI would my journey lay,Where the shade is cool and the dew of nightIs 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?By steeps where children gatherFlowers of the yet fresh year?By lonely walks where lovers strayTill the tender stars appear?Or haply dost thou lingerOn barren plains and bare,Or clamber the bald mountain-sideInto the thinner air? —Where they who journey upwardWalk in a weary track,And oft upon the shady valeWith longing eyes look back?I hear a solemn murmur,And, 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?