Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant

DANTE

Who, mid the grasses of the fieldThat spring beneath our careless feet,First found the shining stems that yieldThe grains of life-sustaining wheat:Who first, upon the furrowed land,Strewed the bright grains to sprout, and grow,And ripen for the reaper's hand —We know not, and we cannot know.But well we know the hand that broughtAnd scattered, far as sight can reach,The seeds of free and living thoughtOn the broad field of modern speech.Mid the white hills that round us lie,We cherish that Great Sower's fame,And, as we pile the sheaves on high,With awe we utter Dante's name.Six centuries, since the poet's birth,Have come and flitted o'er our sphere:The richest harvest reaped on earthCrowns the last century's closing year.1865.

THE DEATH OF LINCOLN

Oh, slow to smite and swift to spare,Gentle and merciful and just!Who, in the fear of God, didst bearThe sword of power, a nation's trust!In sorrow by thy bier we stand,Amid the awe that hushes all,And speak the anguish of a landThat shook with horror at thy fall.Thy task is done; the bond are free:We bear thee to an honored grave,Whose proudest monument shall beThe broken fetters of the slave.Pure was thy life; its bloody closeHath placed thee with the sons of light,Among the noble host of thoseWho perished in the cause of Right. April, 1865.

THE DEATH OF SLAVERY

O thou great Wrong, that, through the slow-paced years,Didst hold thy millions fettered, and didst wieldThe scourge that drove the laborer to the field,And turn a stony gaze on human tears,Thy cruel reign is o'er;Thy bondmen crouch no moreIn terror at the menace of thine eye;For He who marks the bounds of guilty power,Long-suffering, hath heard the captive's cry,And touched his shackles at the appointed hour,And lo! they fall, and he whose limbs they galledStands in his native manhood, disenthralled.A shout of joy from the redeemed is sent;Ten thousand hamlets swell the hymn of thanks;Our rivers roll exulting, and their banksSend up hosannas to the firmament!Fields where the bondman's toilNo more shall trench the soil,Seem now to bask in a serener day;The meadow-birds sing sweeter, and the airsOf heaven with more caressing softness play,Welcoming man to liberty like theirs.A glory clothes the land from sea to sea,For the great land and all its coasts are free.Within that land wert thou enthroned of late,And they by whom the nation's laws were made,And they who filled its judgment-seats obeyedThy mandate, rigid as the will of Fate.Fierce men at thy right hand,With gesture of command,Gave forth the word that none might dare gainsay;And grave and reverend ones, who loved thee not,Shrank from thy presence, and in blank dismayChoked down, unuttered, the rebellious thought;While meaner cowards, mingling with thy train,Proved, from the book of God, thy right to reign.Great as thou wert, and feared from shore to shore,The wrath of Heaven o'ertook thee in thy pride;Thou sitt'st a ghastly shadow; by thy sideThy once strong arms hang nerveless evermore.And they who quailed but nowBefore thy lowering brow,Devote thy memory to scorn and shame,And scoff at the pale, powerless thing thou art.And they who ruled in thine imperial name,Subdued, and standing sullenly apart,Scowl at the hands that overthrew thy reign,And shattered at a blow the prisoner's chain.Well was thy doom deserved; thou didst not spareLife's tenderest ties, but cruelly didst partHusband and wife, and from the mother's heartDidst wrest her children, deaf to shriek and prayer;Thy inner lair becameThe haunt of guilty shame;Thy lash dropped blood; the murderer, at thy side,Showed his red hands, nor feared the vengeance due.Thou didst sow earth with crimes, and, far and wide,A harvest of uncounted miseries grew,Until the measure of thy sins at lastWas full, and then the avenging bolt was cast!Go now, accursed of God, and take thy placeWith hateful memories of the elder time,With many a wasting plague, and nameless crime,And bloody war that thinned the human race;With the Black Death, whose wayThrough wailing cities lay,Worship of Moloch, tyrannies that builtThe Pyramids, and cruel creeds that taughtTo avenge a fancied guilt by deeper guilt —Death at the stake to those that held them not.Lo! the foul phantoms, silent in the gloomOf the flown ages, part to yield thee room.I see the better years that hasten byCarry thee back into that shadowy past,Where, in the dusty spaces, void and vast,The graves of those whom thou hast murdered lie.The slave-pen, through whose doorThy victims pass no more,Is there, and there shall the grim block remainAt which the slave was sold; while at thy feetScourges and engines of restraint and painMoulder and rust by thine eternal seat.There, mid the symbols that proclaim thy crimes,Dwell thou, a warning to the coming times. May, 1866.

"RECEIVE THY SIGHT."

When the blind suppliant in the way,By friendly hands to Jesus led,Prayed to behold the light of day,"Receive thy sight," the Saviour said.At once he saw the pleasant raysThat lit the glorious firmament;And, with firm step and words of praise,He followed where the Master went.Look down in pity, Lord, we pray,On eyes oppressed by moral night,And touch the darkened lids and sayThe gracious words, "Receive thy sight."Then, in clear daylight, shall we seeWhere walked the sinless Son of God;And, aided by new strength from Thee,Press onward in the path He trod.

A BRIGHTER DAY.43

FROM THE SPANISHHarness the impatient Years,O Time! and yoke them to the imperial car;For, through a mist of tears,The brighter day appears,Whose early blushes tinge the hills afar.A brighter day for thee,O realm! whose glorious fields are spread betweenThe dark-blue Midland SeaAnd that immensityOf Western waters which once hailed thee queen!The fiery coursers flingTheir necks aloft, and snuff the morning wind,Till the fleet moments bringThe expected sign to springAlong their path, and leave these glooms behind.Yoke them, and yield the reinsTo Spain, and lead her to the lofty seat;But, ere she mount, the chainsWhose cruel strength constrainsHer limbs must fall in fragments at her feet.A tyrant brood have woundAbout her helpless limbs the steely braid,And toward a gulf profoundThey drag her, gagged and bound,Down among dead men's bones, and frost and shade.O Spain! thou wert of yoreThe wonder of the realms; in prouder yearsThy haughty forehead wore,What it shall wear no more,The diadem of both the hemispheres.To thee the ancient DeepRevealed his pleasant, undiscovered lands;From mines where jewels sleep,Tilled plain and vine-clad steep,Earth's richest spoil was offered to thy hands.Yet thou, when land and seaSent thee their tribute with each rolling wave,And kingdoms crouched to thee,Wert false to Liberty,And therefore art thou now a shackled slave.Wilt thou not, yet again,Put forth the sleeping strength that in thee lies,And snap the shameful chain,And force that tyrant trainTo flee before the anger in thine eyes?Then shall the harnessed YearsSweep onward with thee to that glorious heightWhich even now appearsBright through the mist of tears,The dwelling-place of Liberty and Light. October, 1867.

AMONG THE TREES

Oh ye who love to overhang the springs,And stand by running waters, ye whose boughsMake beautiful the rocks o'er which they play,Who pile with foliage the great hills, and rearA paradise upon the lonely plain,Trees of the forest, and the open field!Have ye no sense of being? Does the air,The pure air, which I breathe with gladness, passIn gushes o'er your delicate lungs, your leaves,All unenjoyed? When on your winter's sleepThe sun shines warm, have ye no dreams of spring?And when the glorious spring-time comes at last,Have ye no joy of all your bursting buds,And fragrant blooms, and melody of birdsTo which your young leaves shiver? Do ye striveAnd wrestle with the wind, yet know it not?Feel ye no glory in your strength when he,The exhausted Blusterer, flies beyond the hills,And leaves you stronger yet? Or have ye notA sense of loss when he has stripped your leaves,Yet tender, and has splintered your fair boughs?Does the loud bolt that smites you from the cloudAnd rends you, fall unfelt? Do there not runStrange shudderings through your fibres when the axeIs raised against you, and the shining bladeDeals blow on blow, until, with all their boughs,Your summits waver and ye fall to earth?Know ye no sadness when the hurricaneHas swept the wood and snapped its sturdy stemsAsunder, or has wrenched, from out the soil,The mightiest with their circles of strong roots,And piled the ruin all along his path?Nay, doubt we not that under the rough rind,In the green veins of these fair growths of earth,There dwells a nature that receives delightFrom all the gentle processes of life,And shrinks from loss of being. Dim and faintMay be the sense of pleasure and of pain,As in our dreams; but, haply, real still.Our sorrows touch you not. We watch besideThe beds of those who languish or who die,And minister in sadness, while our heartsOffer perpetual prayer for life and easeAnd health to the belovèd sufferers.But ye, while anxious fear and fainting hopeAre in our chambers, ye rejoice without.The funeral goes forth; a silent trainMoves slowly from the desolate home; our heartsAre breaking as we lay away the loved,Whom we shall see no more, in their last rest,Their little cells within the burial-place.Ye have no part in this distress; for stillThe February sunshine steeps your boughsAnd tints the buds and swells the leaves within;While the song-sparrow, warbling from her perch,Tells you that spring is near. The wind of MayIs sweet with breath of orchards, in whose boughsThe bees and every insect of the airMake a perpetual murmur of delight,And by whose flowers the humming-bird hangs poisedIn air, and draws their sweets and darts away.The linden, in the fervors of July,Hums with a louder concert. When the windSweeps the broad forest in its summer prime,As when some master-hand exulting sweepsThe keys of some great organ, ye give forthThe music of the woodland depths, a hymnOf gladness and of thanks. The hermit-thrushPipes his sweet note to make your arches ring;The faithful robin, from the wayside elm,Carols all day to cheer his sitting mate;And when the autumn comes, the kings of earth,In all their majesty, are not arrayedAs ye are, clothing the broad mountain-sideAnd spotting the smooth vales with red and gold;While, swaying to the sudden breeze, ye flingYour nuts to earth, and the brisk squirrel comesTo gather them, and barks with childish glee,And scampers with them to his hollow oak.Thus, as the seasons pass, ye keep aliveThe cheerfulness of Nature, till in timeThe constant misery which wrings the heartRelents, and we rejoice with you again,And glory in your beauty; till once moreWe look with pleasure on your varnished leaves,That gayly glance in sunshine, and can hear,Delighted, the soft answer which your boughsUtter in whispers to the babbling brook.Ye have no history. I cannot knowWho, when the hillside trees were hewn away,Haply two centuries since, bade spare this oak,Leaning to shade, with his irregular arms,Low-bent and long, the fount that from his rootsSlips through a bed of cresses toward the bay —I know not who, but thank him that he leftThe tree to flourish where the acorn fell,And join these later days to that far timeWhile yet the Indian hunter drew the bowIn the dim woods, and the white woodman firstOpened these fields to sunshine, turned the soilAnd strewed the wheat. An unremembered PastBroods, like a presence, mid the long gray boughsOf this old tree, which has outlived so longThe flitting generations of mankind.Ye have no history. I ask in vainWho planted on the slope this lofty groupOf ancient pear-trees that with spring-time burstInto such breadth of bloom. One bears a scarWhere the quick lightning scored its trunk, yet stillIt feels the breath of Spring, and every MayIs white with blossoms. Who it was that laidTheir infant roots in earth, and tenderlyCherished the delicate sprays, I ask in vain,Yet bless the unknown hand to which I oweThis annual festival of bees, these songsOf birds within their leafy screen, these shoutsOf joy from children gathering up the fruitShaken in August from the willing boughs.Ye that my hands have planted, or have spared,Beside the way, or in the orchard-ground,Or in the open meadow, ye whose boughsWith every summer spread a wider shade,Whose herd in coming years shall lie at restBeneath your noontide shelter? who shall pluckYour ripened fruit? who grave, as was the wontOf simple pastoral ages, on the rindOf my smooth beeches some beloved name?Idly I ask; yet may the eyes that lookUpon you, in your later, nobler growth,Look also on a nobler age than ours;An age when, in the eternal strife betweenEvil and Good, the Power of Good shall winA grander mastery; when kings no moreShall summon millions from the plough to learnThe trade of slaughter, and of populous realmsMake camps of war; when in our younger landThe hand of ruffian Violence, that nowIs insolently raised to smite, shall fallUnnerved before the calm rebuke of Law,And Fraud, his sly confederate, shrink, in shame,Back to his covert, and forego his prey.

MAY EVENING

The breath of Spring-time at this twilight hourComes through the gathering glooms,And bears the stolen sweets of many a flowerInto my silent rooms.Where hast thou wandered, gentle gale, to findThe perfumes thou dost bring?By brooks, that through the wakening meadows wind,Or brink of rushy spring?Or woodside, where, in little companies,The early wild-flowers rise,Or sheltered lawn, where, mid encircling trees,May's warmest sunshine lies?Now sleeps the humming-bird, that, in the sun,Wandered from bloom to bloom;Now, too, the weary bee, his day's work done,Rests in his waxen room.Now every hovering insect to his placeBeneath the leaves hath flown;And, through the long night hours, the flowery raceAre left to thee alone.O'er the pale blossoms of the sassafrasAnd o'er the spice-bush spray,Among the opening buds, thy breathings pass,And come embalmed away.Yet there is sadness in thy soft caress,Wind of the blooming year!The gentle presence, that was wont to blessThy coming, is not here.Go, then; and yet I bid thee not repair,Thy gathered sweets to shed,Where pine and willow, in the evening air,Sigh o'er the buried dead.Pass on to homes where cheerful voices sound,And cheerful looks are cast,And where thou wakest, in thine airy round,No sorrow of the past.Refresh the languid student pausing o'erThe learned page apart,And he shall turn to con his task once moreWith an encouraged heart.Bear thou a promise, from the fragrant sward,To him who tills the land,Of springing harvests that shall yet rewardThe labors of his hand.And whisper, everywhere, that Earth renewsHer beautiful array,Amid the darkness and the gathering dews,For the return of day.

OCTOBER, 1866

'Twas when the earth in summer glory lay,We bore thee to thy grave; a sudden cloudHad shed its shower and passed, and every sprayAnd tender herb with pearly moisture bowed.How laughed the fields, and how, before our door,Danced the bright waters! – from his perch on highThe hang-bird sang his ditty o'er and o'er,And the song-sparrow from the shrubberies nigh.Yet was the home where thou wert lying deadMournfully still, save when, at times, was heard,From room to room, some softly-moving tread,Or murmur of some softly-uttered word.Feared they to break thy slumber? As we threwA look on that bright bay and glorious shore,Our hearts were wrung with anguish, for we knewThose sleeping eyes would look on them no more.Autumn is here; we cull his lingering flowersAnd bring them to the spot where thou art laid;The late-born offspring of his balmier hours,Spared by the frost, upon thy grave to fade.The sweet calm sunshine of October, nowWarms the low spot; upon its grassy mouldThe purple oak-leaf falls; the birchen boughDrops its bright spoil like arrow-heads of gold.And gorgeous as the morn, a tall arrayOf woodland shelters the smooth fields around;And guarded by its headlands, far awaySail-spotted, blue and lake-like, sleeps the sound.I gaze in sadness; it delights me notTo look on beauty which thou canst not see;And, wert thou by my side, the dreariest spotWere, oh, how far more beautiful to me!In what fair region dost thou now abide?Hath God, in the transparent deeps of space,Through which the planets in their journey glide,Prepared, for souls like thine, a dwelling-place?Fields of unwithering bloom, to mortal eyeInvisible, though mortal eye were near,Musical groves, and bright streams murmuring by,Heard only by the spiritual ear?Nay, let us deem that thou dost not withdrawFrom the dear places where thy lot was cast,And where thy heart, in love's most holy law,Was schooled by all the memories of the past.Here on this earth, where once, among mankind,Walked God's belovèd Son, thine eyes may seeBeauty to which our dimmer sense is blindAnd glory that may make it heaven to thee.May we not think that near us thou dost standWith loving ministrations, for we knowThy heart was never happy when thy handWas forced its tasks of mercy to forego!Mayst thou not prompt, with every coming day,The generous aim and act, and gently winOur restless, wandering thoughts to turn awayFrom every treacherous path that ends in sin!

THE ORDER OF NATURE

FROM BOETHIUS DE CONSOLATIONEThou who wouldst read, with an undarkened eye,The laws by which the Thunderer bears sway,Look at the stars that keep, in yonder sky,Unbroken peace from Nature's earliest day.The great sun, as he guides his fiery car,Strikes not the cold moon in his rapid sweep;The Bear, that sees star setting after starIn the blue brine, descends not to the deep.The star of eve still leads the hour of dews;Duly the day-star ushers in the light;With kindly alternations Love renewsThe eternal courses bringing day and night.Love drives away the brawler War, and keepsThe realm and host of stars beyond his reach;In one long calm the general concord steepsThe elements, and tempers each to each.The moist gives place benignly to the dry;Heat ratifies a faithful league with cold;The nimble flame springs upward to the sky;Down sinks by its own weight the sluggish mould.Still sweet with blossoms is the year's fresh prime;Her harvests still the ripening Summer yields;Fruit-laden Autumn follows in his time,And rainy Winter waters still the fields.The elemental harmony brings forthAnd rears all life, and, when life's term is o'er,It sweeps the breathing myriads from the earth,And whelms and hides them to be seen no more:While the Great Founder, he who gave these laws,Holds the firm reins and sits amid his skiesMonarch and Master, Origin and Cause,And Arbiter supremely just and wise.He guides the force he gave; his hand restrainsAnd curbs it to the circle it must trace:Else the fair fabric which his power sustainsWould fall to fragments in the void of space.Love binds the parts together, gladly stillThey court the kind restraint nor would be free;Unless Love held them subject to the WillThat gave them being, they would cease to be.

TREE-BURIAL

Near our southwestern border, when a childDies in the cabin of an Indian wife,She makes its funeral-couch of delicate furs,Blankets and bark, and binds it to the boughOf some broad branching tree with leathern thongsAnd sinews of the deer. A mother onceWrought at this tender task, and murmured thus:"Child of my love, I do not lay thee downAmong the chilly clods where never comesThe pleasant sunshine. There the greedy wolfMight break into thy grave and tear thee thence,And I should sorrow all my life. I makeThy burial-place here, where the light of dayShines round thee, and the airs that play amongThe boughs shall rock thee. Here the morning sun,Which woke thee once from sleep to smile on me,Shall beam upon thy bed, and sweetly hereShall lie the red light of the evening cloudsWhich called thee once to slumber. Here the starsShall look upon thee – the bright stars of heavenWhich thou didst wonder at. Here too the birds,Whose music thou didst love, shall sing to thee,And near thee build their nests and rear their youngWith none to scare them. Here the woodland flowers,Whose opening in the spring-time thou didst greetWith shouts of joy, and which so well becameThy pretty hands when thou didst gather them,Shall spot the ground below thy little bed."Yet haply thou hast fairer flowers than these,Which, in the land of souls, thy spirit plucksIn fields that wither not, amid the throngOf joyous children, like thyself, who wentBefore thee to that brighter world and sportEternally beneath its cloudless skies.Sport with them, dear, dear child, until I comeTo dwell with thee, and thou, beholding me,From far, shalt run and leap into my arms,And I shall clasp thee as I clasped thee hereWhile living, oh most beautiful and sweetOf children, now more passing beautiful,If that can be, with eyes like summer stars —A light that death can never quench again."And now, oh wind, that here among the leavesDost softly rustle, breathe thou ever thusGently, and put not forth thy strength to tearThe branches and let fall their precious load,A prey to foxes. Thou, too, ancient sun,Beneath whose eye the seasons come and go,And generations rise and pass away,While thou dost never change – oh, call not up,With thy strong heats, the dark, grim thunder-cloud,To smite this tree with bolts of fire, and rendIts trunk and strew the earth with splintered boughs.Ye rains, fall softly on the couch that holdsMy darling. There the panther's spotted hideShall turn aside the shower; and be it long,Long after thou and I have met again,Ere summer wind or winter rain shall wasteThis couch and all that now remains of thee,To me thy mother. Meantime, while I live,With each returning sunrise I shall seemTo see thy waking smile, and I shall weep;And when the sun is setting I shall thinkHow, as I watched thee, o'er thy sleepy eyesDrooped the smooth lids, and laid on the round cheekTheir lashes, and my tears will flow again;And often, at those moments, I shall seemTo hear again the sweetly prattled nameWhich thou didst call me by, and it will hauntMy home till I depart to be with thee."

A LEGEND OF THE DELAWARES

The air is dark with cloud on cloud,And, through the leaden-colored mass,With thunder-crashes quick and loud,A thousand shafts of lightning pass.And to and fro they glance and go,Or, darting downward, smite the ground.What phantom arms are those that throwThe shower of fiery arrows round?A louder crash! a mighty oakIs smitten from that stormy sky.Its stem is shattered by the stroke;Around its root the branches lie.Fresh breathes the wind; the storm is o'er;The piles of mist are swept away;And from the open sky, once more,Streams gloriously the golden day.A dusky hunter of the wildIs passing near, and stops to seeThe wreck of splintered branches piledAbout the roots of that huge tree.Lo, quaintly shaped and fairly strung,Wrought by what hand he cannot know,On that drenched pile of boughs, amongThe splinters, lies a polished bow.He lifts it up; the drops that hangOn the smooth surface glide away:He tries the string, no sharper twangWas ever heard on battle-day.Homeward Onetho bears the prize:Who meets him as he turns to go?An aged chief, with quick, keen eyes,And bending frame, and locks of snow."See, what I bring, my father, seeThis goodly bow which I have foundBeneath a thunder-riven tree,Dropped with the lightning to the ground.""Beware, my son; it is not well" —The white-haired chieftain makes reply —"That we who in the forest dwellShould wield the weapons of the sky."Lay back that weapon in its place;Let those who bore it bear it still,Lest thou displease the ghostly raceThat float in mist from hill to hill.""My father, I will only tryHow well it sends a shaft, and then,Be sure, this goodly bow shall lieAmong the splintered boughs again."So to the hunting-ground he hies,To chase till eve the forest-game,And not a single arrow flies,From that good bow, with erring aim.And then he deems that they, who swimIn trains of cloud the middle air,Perchance had kindly thoughts of himAnd dropped the bow for him to bear.He bears it from that day, and soonBecomes the mark of every eye,And wins renown with every moonThat fills its circle in the sky.None strike so surely in the chase;None bring such trophies from the fight;And, at the council-fire, his placeIs with the wise and men of might.And far across the land is spread,Among the hunter tribes, his fame;Men name the bowyer-chief with dreadWhose arrows never miss their aim.See next his broad-roofed cabin riseOn a smooth river's pleasant side,And she who has the brightest eyesOf all the tribe becomes his bride.A year has passed; the forest sleepsIn early autumn's sultry glow;Onetho, on the mountain-steeps,Is hunting with that trusty bow.But they, who by the river dwell,See the dim vapors thickening o'erLong mountain-range and severing dell,And hear the thunder's sullen roar.Still darker grows the spreading cloudFrom which the booming thunders sound,And stoops and hangs a shadowy shroudAbove Onetho's hunting-ground.Then they who, from the river-vale,Are gazing on the distant storm,See in the mists that ride the galeDim shadows of the human form —Tall warriors, plumed, with streaming hairAnd lifted arms that bear the bow,And send athwart the murky airThe arrowy lightnings to and fro.Loud is the tumult of an hour —Crash of torn boughs and howl of blast,And thunder-peal and pelting shower,And then the storm is overpast.Where is Onetho? what delaysHis coming? why should he remainAmong the plashy woodland ways,Swoln brooks and boughs that drip with rain?He comes not, and the younger menGo forth to search the forest round.They track him to a mountain-glen,And find him lifeless on the ground.The goodly bow that was his prideIs gone, but there the arrows lie;And now they know the death he died,Slain by the lightnings of the sky.They bear him thence in awe and fearBack to the vale with stealthy tread;There silently, from far and near,The warriors gather round the dead.But in their homes the women bide;Unseen they sit and weep apart,And, in her bower, Onetho's brideIs sobbing with a broken heart.They lay in earth their bowyer-chief,And at his side their hands bestowHis dreaded battle-axe and sheafOf arrows, but without a bow."Too soon he died; it is not well" —The old men murmured, standing nigh —"That we, who in the forest dwell,Should wield the weapons of the sky."