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.

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1

In this poem, written and first printed in the year 1821, the author has endeavored, from a survey of the past ages of the world, and of the successive advances of mankind in knowledge, virtue, and happiness, to justify and confirm the hopes of the philanthropist for the future destinies of the human race.

2

The first half of this fragment may seem to the reader borrowed from the essay on Rural Funerals in the fourth number of "The Sketch-book." The lines were, however, written more than a year before that number appeared. The poem, unfinished as it is, would hardly have been admitted into this collection, had not the author been unwilling to lose what had the honor of resembling so beautiful a composition.

3

This poem, written about the time of the horrible butchery of the Sciotes by the Turks, in 1824, has been more fortunate than most poetical predictions. The independence of the Greek nation which it foretold, has come to pass, and the massacre, by inspiring a deeper detestation of their oppressors, did much to promote that event.

4

"The unmarried females have a modest falling down of the hair over the eyes." – Eliot.

5

The mountain called by this name is a remarkable precipice in Great Barrington, overlooking the rich and picturesque valley of the Housatonic, in the western part of Massachusetts. At the southern extremity is, or was a few years since, a conical pile of small stones, erected, according to the tradition of the surrounding country, by the Indians, in memory of a woman of the Stockbridge tribe who killed herself by leaping from the edge of the precipice. Until within a few years past, small parties of that tribe used to arrive from their settlement in the western part of the State of New York, on visits to Stockbridge, the place of their nativity and former residence. A young woman belonging to one of these parties related, to a friend of the author, the story on which the poem of Monument Mountain is founded. An Indian girl had formed an attachment for her cousin, which, according to the customs of the tribe, was unlawful. She was, in consequence, seized with a deep melancholy, and resolved to destroy herself. In company with a female friend, she repaired to the mountain, decked out for the occasion in all her ornaments, and, after passing the day on the summit in singing with her companion the traditional songs of her nation, she threw herself headlong from the rock, and was killed.

6

Some years since, in the month of May, the remains of a human body, partly devoured by wild animals, were found in a woody ravine, near a solitary road passing between the mountains west of the village of Stockbridge. It was supposed that the person came to his death by violence, but no traces could be discovered of his murderers. It was only recollected that one evening, in the course of the previous winter, a traveller had stopped at an inn in the village of West Stockbridge: that he had inquired the way to Stockbridge; and that, in paying the innkeeper for something he had ordered, it appeared that he had a considerable sum of money in his possession. Two ill-looking men were present, and went out about the same time that the traveller proceeded on his journey. During the winter, also, two men of shabby appearance, but plentifully supplied with money, had lingered for a while about the village of Stockbridge. Several years afterward, a criminal, about to be executed for a capital offence in Canada, confessed that he had been concerned in murdering a traveller in Stockbridge for the sake of his money. Nothing was ever discovered respecting the name or residence of the person murdered.