Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant

THE WIND AND STREAM

A brook came stealing from the ground;You scarcely saw its silvery gleamAmong the herbs that hung aroundThe borders of the winding stream,The pretty stream, the placid stream,The softly-gliding, bashful stream.A breeze came wandering from the sky,Light as the whispers of a dream;He put the o'erhanging grasses by,And softly stooped to kiss the stream,The pretty stream, the flattered stream,The shy, yet unreluctant stream.The water, as the wind passed o'er,Shot upward many a glancing beam,Dimpled and quivered more and more,And tripped along, a livelier stream,The flattered stream, the simpering stream,The fond, delighted, silly stream.Away the airy wanderer flewTo where the fields with blossoms teem,To sparkling springs and rivers blue,And left alone that little stream,The flattered stream, the cheated stream,The sad, forsaken, lonely stream.That careless wind came never back;He wanders yet the fields, I deem,But, on its melancholy track,Complaining went that little stream,The cheated stream, the hopeless stream,The ever-murmuring, mourning stream.

THE LOST BIRD.38

FROM THE SPANISH OF CAROLINA CORONADO DE PERRYMy bird has flown away,Far out of sight has flown, I know not where.Look in your lawn, I pray,Ye maidens, kind and fair,And see if my beloved bird be there.His eyes are full of light;The eagle of the rock has such an eye;And plumes, exceeding bright,Round his smooth temples lie,And sweet his voice and tender as a sigh.Look where the grass is gayWith summer blossoms, haply there he cowers;And search, from spray to spray,The leafy laurel-bowers,For well he loves the laurels and the flowers.Find him, but do not dwell,With eyes too fond, on the fair form you see,Nor love his song too well;Send him, at once, to me,Or leave him to the air and liberty.For only from my handHe takes the seed into his golden beak,And all unwiped shall standThe tears that wet my cheek,Till I have found the wanderer I seek.My sight is darkened o'er,Whene'er I miss his eyes, which are my day,And when I hear no moreThe music of his lay,My heart in utter sadness faints away.

THE NIGHT JOURNEY OF A RIVER

Oh River, gentle River! gliding onIn silence underneath the starless sky!Thine is a ministry that never restsEven while the living slumber. For a timeThe meddler, man, hath left the elementsIn peace; the ploughman breaks the clods no more;The miner labors not, with steel and fire,To rend the rock, and he that hews the stone,And he that fells the forest, he that guidesThe loaded wain, and the poor animalThat drags it, have forgotten, for a time,Their toils, and share the quiet of the earth.Thou pausest not in thine allotted task,Oh darkling River! Through the night I hearThy wavelets rippling on the pebbly beach;I hear thy current stir the rustling sedge,That skirts thy bed; thou intermittest notThine everlasting journey, drawing onA silvery train from many a woodland springAnd mountain-brook. The dweller by thy side,Who moored his little boat upon thy beach,Though all the waters that upbore it thenHave slid away o'er night, shall find, at morn,Thy channel filled with waters freshly drawnFrom distant cliffs, and hollows where the rillComes up amid the water-flags. All nightThou givest moisture to the thirsty rootsOf the lithe willow and o'erhanging plane,And cherishest the herbage of thy bank,Spotted with little flowers, and sendest upPerpetually the vapors from thy face,To steep the hills with dew, or darken heavenWith drifting clouds, that trail the shadowy shower.Oh River! darkling River! what a voiceIs that thou utterest while all else is still —The ancient voice that, centuries ago,Sounded between thy hills, while Rome was yetA weedy solitude by Tiber's stream!How many, at this hour, along thy course,Slumber to thine eternal murmurings,That mingle with the utterance of their dreams!At dead of night the child awakes and hearsThy soft, familiar dashings, and is soothed,And sleeps again. An airy multitudeOf little echoes, all unheard by day,Faintly repeat, till morning, after thee,The story of thine endless goings forth.Yet there are those who lie beside thy bedFor whom thou once didst rear the bowers that screenThy margin, and didst water the green fields;And now there is no night so still that theyCan hear thy lapse; their slumbers, were thy voiceLouder than Ocean's, it could never break.For them the early violet no moreOpens upon thy bank, nor, for their eyes,Glitter the crimson pictures of the clouds,Upon thy bosom, when the sun goes down.Their memories are abroad, the memoriesOf those who last were gathered to the earth,Lingering within the homes in which they sat,Hovering above the paths in which they walked,Haunting them like a presence. Even nowThey visit many a dreamer in the formsThey walked in, ere at last they wore the shroud.And eyes there are which will not close to dream,For weeping and for thinking of the grave,The new-made grave, and the pale one within.These memories and these sorrows all shall fade,And pass away, and fresher memoriesAnd newer sorrows come and dwell awhileBeside thy borders, and, in turn, depart.On glide thy waters, till at last they flowBeneath the windows of the populous town,And all night long give back the gleam of lamps,And glimmer with the trains of light that streamFrom halls where dancers whirl. A dimmer rayTouches thy surface from the silent roomIn which they tend the sick, or gather roundThe dying; and a slender, steady beamComes from the little chamber, in the roofWhere, with a feverous crimson on her cheek,The solitary damsel, dying, too,Plies the quick needle till the stars grow pale.There, close beside the haunts of revel, standThe blank, unlighted windows, where the poor,In hunger and in darkness, wake till morn.There, drowsily, on the half-conscious earOf the dull watchman, pacing on the wharf,Falls the soft ripple of the waves that strikeOn the moored bark; but guiltier listenersAre nigh, the prowlers of the night, who stealFrom shadowy nook to shadowy nook, and startIf other sounds than thine are in the air.Oh, glide away from those abodes, that bringPollution to thy channel and make foulThy once clear current; summon thy quick wavesAnd dimpling eddies; linger not, but haste,With all thy waters, haste thee to the deep,There to be tossed by shifting winds and rockedBy that mysterious force which lives withinThe sea's immensity, and wields the weightOf its abysses, swaying to and froThe billowy mass, until the stain, at length,Shall wholly pass away, and thou regainThe crystal brightness of thy mountain-springs.

THE LIFE THAT IS

Thou, who so long hast pressed the couch of pain,Oh welcome, welcome back to life's free breath —To life's free breath and day's sweet light again,From the chill shadows of the gate of death!For thou hadst reached the twilight bound betweenThe world of spirits and this grosser sphere;Dimly by thee the things of earth were seen,And faintly fell earth's voices on thine ear.And now, how gladly we behold, at last,The wonted smile returning to thy brow!The very wind's low whisper, breathing past,In the light leaves, is music to thee now.Thou wert not weary of thy lot; the earthWas ever good and pleasant in thy sight;Still clung thy loves about the household hearth,And sweet was every day's returning light.Then welcome back to all thou wouldst not leave,To this grand march of seasons, days, and hours;The glory of the morn, the glow of eve,The beauty of the streams, and stars, and flowers;To eyes on which thine own delight to rest;To voices which it is thy joy to hear;To the kind toils that ever pleased thee best,The willing tasks of love, that made life dear.Welcome to grasp of friendly hands; to prayersOffered where crowds in reverent worship come,Or softly breathed amid the tender caresAnd loving inmates of thy quiet home.Thou bring'st no tidings of the better land,Even from its verge; the mysteries opened thereAre what the faithful heart may understandIn its still depths, yet words may not declare.And well I deem, that, from the brighter sideOf life's dim border, some o'erflowing raysStreamed from the inner glory, shall abideUpon thy spirit through the coming days.Twice wert thou given me; once in thy fair prime,Fresh from the fields of youth, when first we met,And all the blossoms of that hopeful timeClustered and glowed where'er thy steps were set.And now, in thy ripe autumn, once againGiven back to fervent prayers and yearnings strong,From the drear realm of sickness and of painWhen we had watched, and feared, and trembled long.Now may we keep thee from the balmy airAnd radiant walks of heaven a little space,Where He, who went before thee to prepareFor His meek followers, shall assign thy place.Castellamare, May, 1858.

SONG

"THESE PRAIRIES GLOW WITH FLOWERS."These prairies glow with flowers,These groves are tall and fair,The sweet lay of the mocking-birdRings in the morning air;And yet I pine to seeMy native hill once more,And hear the sparrow's friendly chirpBeside its cottage-door.And he, for whom I leftMy native hill and brook,Alas, I sometimes think I traceA coldness in his look!If I have lost his love,I know my heart will break;And haply, they I left for himWill sorrow for my sake.

A SICK-BED

Long hast thou watched my bed,And smoothed the pillow oftFor this poor, aching head,With touches kind and soft.Oh! smooth it yet again,As softly as before;Once – only once – and thenI need thy hand no more.Yet here I may not stay,Where I so long have lain,Through many a restless dayAnd many a night of pain.But bear me gently forthBeneath the open sky,Where, on the pleasant earth,Till night the sunbeams lie.There, through the coming days,I shall not look to theeMy weary side to raise,And shift it tenderly.There sweetly shall I sleep;Nor wilt thou need to bringAnd put to my hot lipCool water from the spring;Nor wet the kerchief laidUpon my burning brow;Nor from my eyeballs shadeThe light that wounds them now;Nor watch that none shall tread,With noisy footstep, nigh;Nor listen by my bed,To hear my faintest sigh,And feign a look of cheer,And words of comfort speak,Yet turn to hide the tearThat gathers on thy cheek.Beside me, where I rest,Thy loving hands will setThe flowers that please me best —Moss-rose and violet.Then to the sleep I craveResign me, till I seeThe face of Him who gaveHis life for thee and me.Yet, with the setting sun,Come, now and then, at eve,And think of me as oneFor whom thou shouldst not grieve;Who, when the kind releaseFrom sin and suffering came,Passed to the appointed peaceIn murmuring thy name.Leave at my side a space,Where thou shalt come, at last,To find a resting-place,When many years are past.

THE SONG OF THE SOWER

IThe maples redden in the sun;In autumn gold the beeches stand;Rest, faithful plough, thy work is doneUpon the teeming land.Bordered with trees whose gay leaves flyOn every breath that sweeps the sky,The fresh dark acres furrowed lie,And ask the sower's hand.Loose the tired steer and let him goTo pasture where the gentians blow,And we, who till the grateful ground,Fling we the golden shower around.IIFling wide the generous grain; we flingO'er the dark mould the green of spring.For thick the emerald blades shall grow,When first the March winds melt the snow,And to the sleeping flowery below,The early bluebirds sing.Fling wide the grain; we give the fieldsThe ears that nod in summer's gale,The shining stems that summer gilds,The harvest that o'erflows the vale,And swells, an amber sea, betweenThe full-leaved woods, its shores of green.Hark! from the murmuring clods I hearGlad voices of the coming year;The song of him who binds the grain,The shout of those that load the wain,And from the distant grange there comesThe clatter of the thresher's flail,And steadily the millstone humsDown in the willowy vale.IIIFling wide the golden shower; we trustThe strength of armies to the dust.This peaceful lea may haply yieldIts harvest for the tented field.Ha! feel ye not your fingers thrill,As o'er them, in the yellow grains,Glide the warm drops of blood that fill,For mortal strife, the warrior's veins;Such as, on Solferino's day,Slaked the brown sand and flowed away —Flowed till the herds, on Mincio's brink,Snuffed the red stream and feared to drink; —Blood that in deeper pools shall lie,On the sad earth, as time grows gray,When men by deadlier arts shall die,And deeper darkness blot the skyAbove the thundering fray;And realms, that hear the battle-cry,Shall sicken with dismay;And chieftains to the war shall leadWhole nations, with the tempest's speed,To perish in a day; —Till man, by love and mercy taught,Shall rue the wreck his fury wrought,And lay the sword away!Oh strew, with pausing, shuddering hand,The seed upon the helpless land,As if, at every step, ye castThe pelting hail and riving blast.IVNay, strew, with free and joyous sweep,The seed upon the expecting soil;For hence the plenteous year shall heapThe garners of the men who toil.Strew the bright seed for those who tearThe matted sward with spade and share,And those whose sounding axes gleamBeside the lonely forest-stream,Till its broad banks lie bare;And him who breaks the quarry-ledge,With hammer-blows, plied quick and strong,And him who, with the steady sledge,Smites the shrill anvil all day long.Sprinkle the furrow's even traceFor those whose toiling hands uprearThe roof-trees of our swarming race,By grove and plain, by stream and mere;Who forth, from crowded city, leadThe lengthening street, and overlayGreen orchard-plot and grassy meadWith pavement of the murmuring way.Cast, with full hands the harvest cast,For the brave men that climb the mast,When to the billow and the blastIt swings and stoops, with fearful strain,And bind the fluttering mainsail fast,Till the tossed bark shall sit, again,Safe as a sea-bird on the main.VFling wide the grain for those who throwThe clanking shuttle to and fro,In the long row of humming rooms,And into ponderous masses windThe web that, from a thousand looms,Comes forth to clothe mankind.Strew, with free sweep, the grain for them,By whom the busy threadAlong the garment's even hemAnd winding seam is led;A pallid sisterhood, that keepThe lonely lamp alight,In strife with weariness and sleep,Beyond the middle night.Large part be theirs in what the yearShall ripen for the reaper here.VIStill, strew, with joyous hand, the wheatOn the soft mould beneath our feet,For even now I seemTo hear a sound that lightly ringsFrom murmuring harp and viol's strings,As in a summer dream.The welcome of the wedding-guest,The bridegroom's look of bashful pride,The faint smile of the pallid bride,And bridemaid's blush at matron's jest,And dance and song and generous dower,Are in the shining grains we shower.VIIScatter the wheat for shipwrecked men,Who, hunger-worn, rejoice againIn the sweet safety of the shore,And wanderers, lost in woodlands drear,Whose pulses bound with joy to hearThe herd's light bell once more.Freely the golden spray be shedFor him whose heart, when night comes downOn the close alleys of the town,Is faint for lack of bread.In chill roof-chambers, bleak and bare,Or the damp cellar's stifling air,She who now sees, in mute despair,Her children pine for food,Shall feel the dews of gladness startTo lids long tearless, and shall partThe sweet loaf with a grateful heart,Among her thin pale brood.Dear, kindly Earth, whose breast we till!Oh, for thy famished children, fill,Where'er the sower walks,Fill the rich ears that shade the mouldWith grain for grain, a hundredfold,To bend the sturdy stalks.VIIIStrew silently the fruitful seed,As softly o'er the tilth ye tread,For hands that delicately kneadThe consecrated bread —The mystic loaf that crowns the board.When, round the table of their Lord,Within a thousand temples set,In memory of the bitter deathOf Him who taught at Nazareth,His followers are met,And thoughtful eyes with tears are wet,As of the Holy One they think,The glory of whose rising yetMakes bright the grave's mysterious brink.IXBrethren, the sower's task is done.The seed is in its winter bed.Now let the dark-brown mould be spread,To hide it from the sun,And leave it to the kindly careOf the still earth and brooding air,As when the mother, from her breast,Lays the hushed babe apart to rest,And shades its eyes, and waits to seeHow sweet its waking smile will be.The tempest now may smite, the sleetAll night on the drowned furrow beat,And winds that, from the cloudy hold,Of winter breathe the bitter cold,Stiffen to stone the mellow mould,Yet safe shall lie the wheat;Till, out of heaven's unmeasured blue,Shall walk again the genial year,To wake with warmth and nurse with dewThe germs we lay to slumber here.XOh blessed harvest yet to be!Abide thou with the Love that keeps,In its warm bosom, tenderly,The Life which wakes and that which sleeps.The Love that leads the willing spheresAlong the unending track of years,And watches o'er the sparrow's nest,Shall brood above thy winter rest,And raise thee from the dust, to holdLight whisperings with the winds of May,And fill thy spikes with living gold,From summer's yellow ray;Then, as thy garners give thee forth,On what glad errands shalt thou go,Wherever, o'er the waiting earth,Roads wind and rivers flow!The ancient East shall welcome theeTo mighty marts beyond the sea,And they who dwell where palm-groves soundTo summer winds the whole year round,Shall watch, in gladness, from the shore,The sails that bring thy glistening store.

THE NEW AND THE OLD

New are the leaves on the oaken spray,New the blades of the silky grass;Flowers, that were buds but yesterday,Peep from the ground where'er I pass.These gay idlers, the butterflies,Broke, to-day, from their winter shroud;These light airs, that winnow the skies,Blow, just born, from the soft, white cloud.Gushing fresh in the little streams,What a prattle the waters make!Even the sun, with his tender beams,Seems as young as the flowers they wake.Children are wading, with cheerful cries,In the shoals of the sparkling brook;Laughing maidens, with soft, young eyes,Walk or sit in the shady nook.What am I doing, thus alone,In the glory of Nature here,Silver-haired, like a snow-flake thrownOn the greens of the springing year?Only for brows unploughed by care,Eyes that glisten with hope and mirth,Cheeks unwrinkled, and unblanched hair,Shines this holiday of the earth.Under the grass, with the clammy clay,Lie in darkness the last year's flowers,Born of a light that has passed away,Dews long dried and forgotten showers."Under the grass is the fitting home,"So they whisper, "for such as thou,When the winter of life is come,Chilling the blood, and frosting the brow."

THE CLOUD ON THE WAY

See, before us, in our journey, broods a mist upon the ground;Thither leads the path we walk in, blending with that gloomy bound.Never eye hath pierced its shadows to the mystery they screen;Those who once have passed within it never more on earth are seen.Now it seems to stoop beside us, now at seeming distance lowers,Leaving banks that tempt us onward bright with summer-green and flowers.Yet it blots the way forever; there our journey ends at last;Into that dark cloud we enter, and are gathered to the past.Thou who, in this flinty pathway, leading through a stranger-land,Passest down the rocky valley, walking with me hand in hand,Which of us shall be the soonest folded to that dim Unknown?Which shall leave the other walking in this flinty path alone?Even now I see thee shudder, and thy cheek is white with fear,And thou clingest to my side as comes that darkness sweeping near."Here," thou sayst, "the path is rugged, sown with thorns that wound the feet;But the sheltered glens are lovely, and the rivulet's song is sweet;Roses breathe from tangled thickets; lilies bend from ledges brown;Pleasantly between the pelting showers the sunshine gushes down;Dear are those who walk beside us, they whose looks and voices makeAll this rugged region cheerful, till I love it for their sake.Far be yet the hour that takes me where that chilly shadow lies,From the things I know and love, and from the sight of loving eyes!"So thou murmurest, fearful one; but see, we tread a rougher way;Fainter glow the gleams of sunshine that upon the dark rocks play;Rude winds strew the faded flowers upon the crags o'er which we pass;Banks of verdure, when we reach them, hiss with tufts of withered grass.One by one we miss the voices which we loved so well to hear;One by one the kindly faces in that shadow disappear.Yet upon the mist before us fix thine eyes with closer view;See, beneath its sullen skirts, the rosy morning glimmers through.One whose feet the thorns have wounded passed that barrier and came back,With a glory on His footsteps lighting yet the dreary track.Boldly enter where He entered; all that seems but darkness here,When thou once hast passed beyond it, haply shall be crystal-clear.Viewed from that serener realm, the walks of human life may lie,Like the page of some familiar volume, open to thine eye;Haply, from the o'erhanging shadow, thou mayst stretch an unseen hand,To support the wavering steps that print with blood the rugged land.Haply, leaning o'er the pilgrim, all unweeting thou art near,Thou mayst whisper words of warning or of comfort in his earTill, beyond the border where that brooding mystery bars the sight,Those whom thou hast fondly cherished stand with thee in peace and light.

THE TIDES

The moon is at her full, and, riding high,Floods the calm fields with light;The airs that hover in the summer-skyAre all asleep to-night.There comes no voice from the great woodlands roundThat murmured all the day;Beneath the shadow of their boughs the groundIs not more still than they.But ever heaves and moans the restless Deep;His rising tides I hear,Afar I see the glimmering billows leap;I see them breaking near.Each wave springs upward, climbing toward the fairPure light that sits on high —Springs eagerly, and faintly sinks, to whereThe mother-waters lie.Upward again it swells; the moonbeams showAgain its glimmering crest;Again it feels the fatal weight below,And sinks, but not to rest.Again and yet again; until the DeepRecalls his brood of waves;And, with a sullen moan, abashed, they creepBack to his inner caves.Brief respite! they shall rush from that recessWith noise and tumult soon,And fling themselves, with unavailing stress,Up toward the placid moon.O restless Sea, that, in thy prison here,Dost struggle and complain;Through the slow centuries yearning to be nearTo that fair orb in vain;The glorious source of light and heat must warmThy billows from on high,And change them to the cloudy trains that formThe curtain of the sky.Then only may they leave the waste of brineIn which they welter here,And rise above the hills of earth, and shineIn a serener sphere.

ITALY

Voices from the mountains speak,Apennines to Alps reply;Vale to vale and peak to peakToss an old-remembered cry:"ItalyShall be free!"Such the mighty shout that fillsAll the passes of her hills.All the old Italian lakesQuiver at that quickening word;Como with a thrill awakes;Garda to her depths is stirred;Mid the steepsWhere he sleeps,Dreaming of the elder years,Startled Thrasymenus hears.Sweeping Arno, swelling Po,Murmur freedom to their meads.Tiber swift and Liris slowSend strange whispers from their reeds."ItalyShall be free!"Sing the glittering brooks that slide,Toward the sea, from Etna's side.Long ago was Gracchus slain;Brutus perished long ago;Yet the living roots remainWhence the shoots of greatness grow;Yet again,Godlike men,Sprung from that heroic stem,Call the land to rise with them.They who haunt the swarming street,They who chase the mountain-boar,Or, where cliff and billow meet,Prune the vine or pull the oar,With a strokeBreak their yoke;Slaves but yestereve were they —Freemen with the dawning day.Looking in his children's eyes,While his own with gladness flash,"These," the Umbrian father cries,"Ne'er shall crouch beneath the lash!These shall ne'erBrook to wearChains whose cruel links are twinedRound the crushed and withering mind."Monarchs! ye whose armies standHarnessed for the battle-field!Pause, and from the lifted handDrop the bolts of war ye wield.Stand aloofWhile the proofOf the people's might is given;Leave their kings to them and Heaven!Stand aloof, and see the oppressedChase the oppressor, pale with fear,As the fresh winds of the westBlow the misty valleys clear.Stand and seeItalyCast the gyves she wears no moreTo the gulfs that steep her shore.

A DAY-DREAM

A day-dream by the dark-blue deep;Was it a dream, or something more?I sat where Posilippo's steep,With its gray shelves, o'erhung the shore.On ruined Roman walls aroundThe poppy flaunted, for 'twas May;And at my feet, with gentle sound,Broke the light billows of the bay.I sat and watched the eternal flowOf those smooth billows toward the shore,While quivering lines of light belowRan with them on the ocean-floor:Till, from the deep, there seemed to riseWhite arms upon the waves outspread,Young faces, lit with soft blue eyes,And smooth, round cheeks, just touched with red.Their long, fair tresses, tinged with gold,Lay floating on the ocean-streams,And such their brows as bards behold —Love-stricken bards – in morning dreams.Then moved their coral lips; a strainLow, sweet and sorrowful, I heard,As if the murmurs of the mainWere shaped to syllable and word."The sight thou dimly dost behold,Oh, stranger from a distant sky!Was often, in the days of old,Seen by the clear, believing eye."Then danced we on the wrinkled sand,Sat in cool caverns by the sea,Or wandered up the bloomy land,To talk with shepherds on the lea."To us, in storms, the seaman prayed,And where our rustic altars stood,His little children came and laidThe fairest flowers of field and wood."Oh woe, a long, unending woe!For who shall knit the ties againThat linked the sea-nymphs, long ago,In kindly fellowship with men?"Earth rears her flowers for us no more;A half-remembered dream are we;Unseen we haunt the sunny shore,And swim, unmarked, the glassy sea."And we have none to love or aid,But wander, heedless of mankind,With shadows by the cloud-rack made,With moaning wave and sighing wind."Yet sometimes, as in elder days,We come before the painter's eye,Or fix the sculptor's eager gaze,With no profaner witness nigh."And then the words of men grow warmWith praise and wonder, asking whereThe artist saw the perfect formHe copied forth in lines so fair."As thus they spoke, with wavering sweepFloated the graceful forms away;Dimmer and dimmer, through the deep,I saw the white arms gleam and play.Fainter and fainter, on mine ear,Fell the soft accents of their speech,Till I, at last, could only hearThe waves run murmuring up the beach.