Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant

AFTER A TEMPEST

The day had been a day of wind and storm,The wind was laid, the storm was overpast,And stooping from the zenith, bright and warm,Shone the great sun on the wide earth at last.I stood upon the upland slope, and castMine 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.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 heardAbout the flowers; the cheerful rivulet sungAnd gossiped, as he hastened oceanward;To the gray oak the squirrel, chiding, clung,And chirping from the ground the grasshopper upsprung.And from beneath the leaves that kept them dryFlew many a glittering insect here and there,And darted up and down the butterfly,That seemed a living blossom of the air,The flocks came scattering from the thicket, whereThe violent rain had pent them; in the wayStrolled groups of damsels frolicsome 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 fallUpon 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 brightAnd 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 sceneAn emblem of the peace that yet shall be,When o'er earth's continents, and isles between,The noise of war shall cease from sea to sea,And married nations dwell in harmony;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 sunThe o'erlabored captive toil, and wish his life were done.Too long, at clash of arms amid her bowersAnd pools of blood, the earth has stood aghast,The fair earth, that should only blush with flowersAnd ruddy fruits; but not for aye can lastThe storm, and sweet the sunshine when 'tis past.Lo, the clouds roll away – they break – they fly,And, like the glorious light of summer, castO'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 purple and gold,That guard the enchanted ground.I roam the woods that crownThe uplands, where the mingled splendors glow,Where the gay company of trees look downOn the green fields below.My steps are not aloneIn these bright walks; the sweet southwest, at play,Flies, rustling, where the painted leaves are strownAlong 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 madeThe valleys sick with heat?Let in through all the treesCome 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.But 'neath you 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 soonDepart 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 blestForever in thy colored shades to stray;Amid the kisses of the soft southwestTo roam and dream for aye;And leave the vain low strifeThat makes men mad – the tug for wealth and power —The passions and the cares that wither life,And waste its little hour.

MUTATION

They talk of short-lived pleasure – be it so —Pain dies as quickly: stern, hard-featured painExpires, and lets her weary prisoner go.The fiercest agonies have shortest reign;And after dreams of horror, comes againThe 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 increaseAre fruits of innocence and blessedness:Thus joy, o'erborne and bound, doth still releaseHis young limbs from the chains that round him press.Weep not that the world changes – did it keepA stable, changeless state, 'twere cause indeed to weep.

NOVEMBER

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,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 beeShall 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 bearThe piercing winter frost, and winds, and darkened air.

SONG OF THE GREEK AMAZON

I buckle to my slender sideThe pistol and the scimitar,And in my maiden flower and prideAm come to share the task of war.And yonder stands the 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 ruffled hair;My dimmed and dusty arms I bring,And wash away the blood-stain there.Why should I guard from wind and sunThis cheek, whose virgin rose is fled?It was for one – oh, only one —I kept its bloom, and he is dead.But they who slew him – unawareOf 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 yearsAre 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 laysWhose hands can touch a lover's hand.The march of hosts that haste to meetSeems gayer than the dance to me;The lute's sweet tones are not so sweetAs the fierce shout of victory.

TO A CLOUD

Beautiful cloud! with folds so soft and fair,Swimming in the pure quiet air!Thy fleeces bathed in sunlight, while belowThy 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 theeIn thy calm way o'er land and sea;To rest on thy unrolling skirts, and lookOn 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 soundOf 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 shinesOn his own olive-groves and vines,Or the soft lights of Italy's clear skyIn smiles upon her ruins lie.But I would woo the winds to let us restO'er Greece, long fettered and oppressed,Whose sons at length have heard the call that comesFrom the old battle-fields and tombs,And risen, and drawn the sword, and on the foeHave dealt the swift and desperate blow,And the Othman power is cloven, and the strokeHas touched its chains, and they are broke.Ay, we would linger, till the sunset thereShould come, to purple all the air,And thou reflect upon the sacred groundThe 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 mayst frownIn the dark heaven when storms come down;And weep in rain, till man's inquiring eyeMiss thee, forever, from the sky.

THE MURDERED TRAVELLER.6

When Spring, to woods and wastes around,Brought bloom and joy again,The murdered traveller's bones were found,Far down a narrow glen.The fragrant birch, above him, hungHer tassels in the sky;And many a vernal blossom sprung,And nodded careless by.The red-bird warbled, as he wroughtHis hanging nest o'erhead,And fearless, near the fatal spot,Her young the partridge led.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 poleThe northern dawn was red,The mountain-wolf and wild-cat stoleTo 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 spiedHis welcome step again,Nor knew the fearful death he diedFar down that narrow glen.

HYMN TO THE NORTH STAR

The sad and solemn nightHath yet her multitude of cheerful fires;The glorious host of lightWalk the dark hemisphere till she retires;All through her silent watches, gliding slow,Her constellations come, and climb the heavens, and go.Day, too, hath many a starTo 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 a radiant 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 earthChases the day, beholds thee watching there;There noontide finds thee, and the hour that callsThe shapes of polar flame to scale heaven's azure walls.Alike, beneath thine eye,The deeds of darkness and of light are gone;High toward the starlit skyTowns 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 blazeThe 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 beholdA beauteous type of that unchanging good,That bright eternal beacon, by whose rayThe voyager of time should shape his heedful way.

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 crowdOf 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 soonThe 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 glowIn prospect like Elysian isles;And let the cheerful future go,With all her promises and smiles?The future! – cruel were the powerWhose doom would tear thee from my heart,Thou sweetener of the present hour!We cannot – no – we will not part.Oh, leave me, still, the rapid flightThat 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 faceNew meaning every hour I see;The years, that o'er each sister landShall lift the country of my birth,And nurse her strength, till she shall standThe pride and pattern of the earth:Till younger commonwealths, for aid,Shall cling about her ample robe,And from her frown shall shrink afraidThe crowned oppressors of the globe.True – time will seam and blanch my brow —Well – I shall sit with aged men,And my good glass will tell me howA grizzly beard becomes me then.And then, should no dishonor lieUpon 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 allThat speeds thy wingèd feet so fast:Thy pleasures stay not till they pall,And all thy pains are quickly past.Thou fliest and bear'st away our woes,And as thy shadowy train depart,The memory of sorrow growsA lighter burden on the heart.

THE 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 deathWere moved through their depths by his mighty breath,And orbs of beauty and spheres of flameFrom the void abyss by myriads came —In the joy of youth as they darted away,Through the widening wastes of space to play,Their silver voices in chorus rang,And this was the song the bright ones sang:"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 light."For the source of glory uncovers his face,And the brightness o'erflows unbounded space,And we drink as we go to the luminous tidesIn our ruddy air and our blooming sides:Lo, yonder the living splendors play;Away, on our joyous path, away!"Look, look, through our glittering ranks afar,In the infinite azure, star after star,How they brighten and bloom as they swiftly 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 eve, 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 her shadowy cone the night goes round!"Away, away! in our blossoming bowers,In the soft airs 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 sentTo the furthest wall of the firmament —The boundless visible smile of HimTo the veil of whose brow your lamps are dim."

A FOREST HYMN

The groves were God's first temples. Ere man learnedTo hew the shaft, and lay the architrave,And spread the roof above them – ere he framedThe lofty vault, to gather and roll backThe sound of anthems; in the darkling wood,Amid the cool and silence, he knelt down,And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanksAnd supplication. For his simple heartMight not resist the sacred influencesWhich, from the stilly twilight of the place,And from the gray old trunks that high in heavenMingled their mossy boughs, and from the soundOf the invisible breath that swayed at onceAll their green tops, stole over him, and bowedHis spirit with the thought of boundless powerAnd inaccessible majesty. Ah, whyShould we, in the world's riper years, neglectGod's ancient sanctuaries, and adoreOnly among the crowd, and under roofsThat our frail hands have raised? Let me, at least,Here, in the shadow of this aged wood,Offer one hymn – thrice happy, if it findAcceptance in His ear.Father, thy handHath reared these venerable columns, thouDidst weave this verdant roof. Thou didst look downUpon the naked earth, and, forthwith, roseAll these fair ranks of trees. They, in thy sun,Budded, and shook their green leaves in thy breeze,And shot toward heaven. The century-living crowWhose birth was in their tops, grew old and diedAmong their branches, till, at last, they stood,As now they stand, massy, and tall, and dark,Fit shrine for humble worshipper to holdCommunion with his Maker. These dim vaults,These winding aisles, of human pomp or prideReport not. No fantastic carvings showThe boast of our vain race to change the formOf thy fair works. But thou art here – thou fill'stThe solitude. Thou art in the soft windsThat run along the summit of these treesIn music; thou art in the cooler breathThat from the inmost darkness of the placeComes, 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,From perch to perch, the solitary birdPasses; and yon clear spring, that, midst its herbs,Wells softly forth and wandering steeps the rootsOf half the mighty forest, tells no taleOf all the good it does. Thou hast not leftThyself without a witness, in the shades,Of thy perfections. Grandeur, strength, and graceAre here to speak of thee. This mighty oak —By whose immovable stem I stand and seemAlmost annihilated – not a prince,In all that proud old world beyond the deep,E'er wore his crown as loftily as heWears the green coronal of leaves with whichThy hand has graced him. Nestled at his rootIs beauty, such as blooms not in the glareOf 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 great universe.My heart is awed within me when I thinkOf the great miracle that still goes on,In silence, round me – the perpetual workOf thy creation, finished, yet renewedForever. Written on thy works I readThe lesson of thy own eternity.Lo! all grow old and die – but see again,How on the faltering footsteps of decayYouth presses – ever gay and beautiful youthIn all its beautiful forms. These lofty treesWave not less proudly that their ancestorsMoulder beneath them. Oh, there is not lostOne of earth's charms: upon her bosom yet,After the flight of untold centuries,The freshness of her far beginning liesAnd yet shall lie. Life mocks the idle hateOf his arch-enemy Death – yea, seats himselfUpon the tyrant's throne – the sepulchre,And of the triumphs of his ghastly foeMakes his own nourishment. For he came forthFrom thine own bosom, and shall have no end.There have been holy men who hid themselvesDeep in the woody wilderness, and gaveTheir lives to thought and prayer, till they outlivedThe generation born with them, nor seemedLess aged than the hoary trees and rocksAround them; – and there have been holy menWho deemed it were not well to pass life thus.But let me often to these solitudesRetire, and in thy presence reassureMy feeble virtue. Here its enemies,The passions, at thy plainer footsteps shrinkAnd tremble and are still. O God! when thouDost scare the world with tempests, set on fireThe heavens with falling thunderbolts, or fill,With all the waters of the firmament,The swift dark whirlwind that uproots the woodsAnd drowns the villages; when, at thy call,Uprises the great deep and throws himselfUpon the continent, and overwhelmsIts cities – who forgets not, at the sightOf these tremendous tokens of thy power,His pride, and lays his strifes and follies by?Oh, from these sterner aspects of thy faceSpare me and mine, nor let us need the wrathOf the mad unchained elements to teachWho rules them. Be it ours to meditate,In these calm shades, thy milder majesty,And to the beautiful order of thy worksLearn to conform the order of our lives.

"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 thine infant eye.Thy sports, thy wanderings, when a child,Were ever in the sylvan wild;And all the beauty of the placeIs in thy heart and on thy face.The twilight of the trees and rocksIs in the light shade of thy locks;Thy step is as the wind, that weavesIts playful way among the leaves.Thine eyes are springs, in whose sereneAnd silent waters heaven is seen;Their lashes are the herbs that lookOn 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 airOf those calm solitudes, is there.

"I BROKE 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 loreShall waste my prime of years no more,For Poetry, though heavenly born,Consorts with poverty and scorn.I broke the spell – nor deemed its powerCould fetter me another hour.Ah, thoughtless! how could I forgetIts causes were around me yet?For wheresoe'er I looked, the while,Was Nature's everlasting smile.Still came and lingered on my sightOf 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.

JUNE

I gazed upon the glorious skyAnd the green mountains round,And thought that when I came to lieAt rest within the ground,'Twere 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 clods 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 pressedInto my narrow place of rest.There through the long, long summer hours,The golden light should lie,And thick young herbs and groups of flowersStand in their beauty by.The oriole should build and tellHis love-tale close beside my cell;The idle butterflyShould rest him there, and there be heardThe housewife bee and humming-bird.And what if cheerful shouts at noonCome, from the village sent,Or songs of maids, beneath the moonWith fairy laughter blent?And what if, in the evening light,Betrothèd lovers walk in sightOf my low monument?I would the lovely scene aroundMight know no sadder sight nor sound.I know that I no more should seeThe 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 bloomShould keep them lingering by my tomb.These to their softened hearts should bearThe thought of what has been,And speak of one who cannot shareThe gladness of the scene;Whose part, in all the pomp that fillsThe circuit of the summer hills,Is that his grave is green;And deeply would their hearts rejoiceTo hear again his living voice.

A SONG OF PITCAIRN'S ISLAND

Come, take our boy, and we will goBefore 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 I 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 sweetThan 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 praiseMy 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 wearThy soft blue eyes and sunny hair,And when my sight is metBy his white brow and blooming cheek,I feel a joy I cannot speak.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 braidA 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 blest as ours —The God who made, for thee and me,This sweet lone isle amid the sea.

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 treesArise, and piles built up of old,And hills, whose ancient summits freezeIn 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 highThe storm has made his airy seat,Beyond that soft blue curtain lieHis 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.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 thereThe meek moon walks the silent air.The sunny Italy may boastThe beauteous tints that flush her skies,And lovely, round the Grecian coast,May thy blue pillars rise.I only know how fair they standAround 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 thenAway from this cold earth,And look into thy azure breast,For seats of innocence and rest!