Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant

"I CANNOT FORGET WITH WHAT FERVID DEVOTION."

I cannot forget with what fervid devotionI worshipped the visions of verse and of fame;Each gaze at the glories of earth, sky, and ocean,To my kindled emotions, was wind over flame.And deep were my musings in life's early blossom,Mid the twilight of mountain-groves wandering long;How thrilled my young veins, and how throbbed my full bosom,When o'er me descended the spirit of song!'Mong the deep-cloven fells that for ages had listenedTo the rush of the pebble-paved river between,Where the kingfisher screamed and gray precipice glistened,All breathless with awe have I gazed on the scene;Till I felt the dark power o'er my reveries stealing,From the gloom of the thicket that over me hung,And the thoughts that awoke, in that rapture of feeling,Were formed into verse as they rose to my tongue.Bright visions! I mixed with the world, and ye faded,No longer your pure rural worshipper now;In the haunts your continual presence pervaded,Ye shrink from the signet of care on my brow.In the old mossy groves on the breast of the mountains,In deep lonely glens where the waters complain,By the shade of the rock, by the gush of the fountain,I seek your loved footsteps, but seek them in vain.Oh, leave not forlorn and forever forsaken,Your pupil and victim to life and its tears!But sometimes return, and in mercy awakenThe glories ye showed to his earlier years.

TO A MOSQUITO

Fair insect! that, with threadlike legs spread out,And blood-extracting bill and filmy wing,Dost murmur, as thou slowly sail'st about,In pitiless ears full many a plaintive thing,And tell how little our large veins would bleed,Would we but yield them to thy bitter need.Unwillingly, I own, and, what is worse,Full angrily men hearken to thy plaint;Thou gettest many a brush, and many a curse,For saying thou art gaunt, and starved, and faint;Even the old beggar, while he asks for food,Would kill thee, hapless stranger, if he could.I call thee stranger, for the town, I ween,Has not the honor of so proud a birth, —Thou com'st from Jersey meadows, fresh and green,The offspring of the gods, though born on earth;For Titan was thy sire, and fair was she,The ocean-nymph that nursed thy infancy.Beneath the rushes was thy cradle swung,And when at length thy gauzy wings grew strong,Abroad to gentle airs their folds were flung,Rose in the sky and bore thee soft along;The south wind breathed to waft thee on the way,And danced and shone beneath the billowy bay.Calm rose afar the city spires, and thenceCame the deep murmur of its throng of men,And as its grateful odors met thy sense,They seemed the perfumes of thy native fen.Fair lay its crowded streets, and at the sightThy tiny song grew shriller with delight.At length thy pinions fluttered in Broadway —Ah, there were fairy steps, and white necks kissedBy wanton airs, and eyes whose killing rayShone through the snowy veils like stars through mist;And fresh as morn, on many a cheek and chin,Bloomed the bright blood through the transparent skin.Sure these were sights to touch an anchorite!What! do I hear thy slender voice complain?Thou wailest when I talk of beauty's light,As if it brought the memory of pain:Thou art a wayward being – well – come near,And pour thy tale of sorrow in my ear.What sayest thou – slanderer! – rouge makes thee sick?And China bloom at best is sorry food?And Rowland's Kalydor, if laid on thick,Poisons the thirsty wretch that bores for blood?Go! 'twas a just reward that met thy crime —But shun the sacrilege another time.That bloom was made to look at, not to touch;To worship, not approach, that radiant white;And well might sudden vengeance light on suchAs dared, like thee, most impiously to bite.Thou shouldst have gazed at distance and admired,Murmured thy adoration, and retired.Thou'rt welcome to the town; but why come hereTo bleed a brother poet, gaunt like thee?Alas! the little blood I have is dear,And thin will be the banquet drawn from me.Look round – the pale-eyed sisters in my cell,Thy old acquaintance, Song and Famine, dwell.Try some plump alderman, and suck the bloodEnriched by generous wine and costly meat;On well-filled skins, sleek as thy native mud,Fix thy light pump and press thy freckled feet.Go to the men for whom, in ocean's halls,The oyster breeds, and the green turtle sprawls.There corks are drawn, and the red vintage flowsTo fill the swelling veins for thee, and nowThe ruddy cheek and now the ruddier noseShall tempt thee, as thou flittest round the brow;And when the hour of sleep its quiet brings,No angry hands shall rise to brush thy wings.

LINES ON REVISITING THE COUNTRY

I stand upon my native hills again,Broad, round, and green, that in the summer skyWith garniture of waving grass and grain,Orchards, and beechen forests, basking lie,While deep the sunless glens are scooped between,Where brawl o'er shallow beds the streams unseen.A lisping voice and glancing eyes are near,And ever-restless feet of one, who, now,Gathers the blossoms of her fourth bright year;There plays a gladness o'er her fair young browAs breaks the varied scene upon her sight,Upheaved and spread in verdure and in light.For I have taught her, with delighted eye,To gaze upon the mountains, – to behold,With deep affection, the pure ample skyAnd clouds along its blue abysses rolled,To love the song of waters, and to hearThe melody of winds with charmèd ear.Here, have I 'scaped the city's stifling heat,Its horrid sounds, and its polluted air,And, where the season's milder fervors beat,And gales, that sweep the forest borders, bearThe song of bird and sound of running stream,Am come awhile to wander and to dream.Ay, flame thy fiercest, sun! thou canst not wake,In this pure air, the plague that walks unseen.The maize-leaf and the maple-bough but take,From thy strong heats, a deeper, glossier green.The mountain wind, that faints not in thy ray,Sweeps the blue steams of pestilence away.The mountain wind! most spiritual thing of allThe wide earth knows; when, in the sultry tune,He stoops him from his vast cerulean hall,He seems the breath of a celestial clime!As if from heaven's wide-open gates did flowHealth and refreshment on the world below.

THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS

The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere.Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead;They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread;The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay,And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day.Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stoodIn brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood?Alas! they all are in their graves, the gentle race of flowersAre lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours.The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold November rainCalls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again.The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago,And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow;But on the hills the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood,And the yellow sun-flower by the brook in autumn beauty stood,Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on men,And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland, glade, and glen.And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will come,To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home;When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees' added are still,And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill,The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore,And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more.And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died,The fair meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side.In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forests cast the leaf,And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief:Yet not unmeet it was that one, like that young friend of ours,So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers.

ROMERO

When freedom, from the land of Spain,By Spain's degenerate sons was driven,Who gave their willing limbs againTo wear the chain so lately riven;Romero broke the sword he wore —"Go, faithful brand," the warrior said,"Go, undishonored, never moreThe blood of man shall make thee red.I grieve for that already shed;And I am sick at heart to know,That faithful friend and noble foeHave only bled to make more strongThe yoke that Spain has worn so long.Wear it who will, in abject fear —I wear it not who have been free;The perjured Ferdinand shall hearNo oath of loyalty from me."Then, hunted by the hounds of power,Romero chose a safe retreat,Where bleak Nevada's summits towerAbove the beauty at their feet.There once, when on his cabin layThe crimson light of setting day,When, even on the mountain's breast,The chainless winds were all at rest,And he could hear the river's flowFrom the calm paradise below;Warmed with his former fires againHe framed this rude but solemn strain:I"Here will I make my home – for here at least I see,Upon this wild Sierra's side, the steps of Liberty;Where the locust chirps unscared beneath the unpruned lime,And the merry bee doth hide from man the spoil of the mountain-thyme;Where the pure winds come and go, and the wild-vine strays at will,An outcast from the haunts of men, she dwells with Nature still.II"I see the valleys, Spain! where thy mighty rivers run,And the hills that lift thy harvests and vineyards to the sun,And the flocks that drink thy brooks and sprinkle all the green,Where lie thy plains, with sheep-walks seamed, and olive-shades between:I see thy fig-trees bask, with the fair pomegranate near,And the fragrance of thy lemon-groves can almost reach me here.III"Fair – fair – but fallen Spain! 'tis with a swelling heart,That I think on all thou mightst have been, and look at what thou art;But the strife is over now, and all the good and brave,That would have raised thee up, are gone, to exile or the grave.Thy fleeces are for monks, thy grapes for the convent feast,And the wealth of all thy harvest-fields for the pampered lord and priest.IV"But I shall see the day – it will come before I die —I shall see it in my silver hairs, and with an age-dimmed eye;When the spirit of the land to liberty shall bound,As yonder fountain leaps away from the darkness of the ground:And to my mountain-cell, the voices of the freeShall rise as from the beaten shore the thunders of the sea."

A MEDITATION ON RHODE ISLAND COAL

"Decolor, obscurus, vilis, non ille repexam

Cesariem regum, non candida virginis ornat

Colla, nec insigni splendet per cingula morsu

Sed nova si nigri videas miracula saxi,

Tune superat pulchroa cultus et quicquid Eois

Indus litoribus rubra scrutatur in alga."

Claudian.I sat beside the glowing grate, fresh heapedWith Newport coal, and as the flame grew bright– The many-colored flame – and played and leaped,I thought of rainbows, and the northern light,Moore's Lalla Rookh, the Treasury Report,And other brilliant matters of the sort.And last I thought of that fair isle which sentThe mineral fuel; on a summer dayI saw it once, with heat and travel spent,And scratched by dwarf-oaks in the hollow way.Now dragged through sand, now jolted over stone —A rugged road through rugged Tiverton.And hotter grew the air, and hollower grewThe deep-worn path, and horror-struck, I thought,Where will this dreary passage lead me to?This long dull road, so narrow, deep, and hot?I looked to see it dive in earth outright;I looked – but saw a far more welcome sight.Like a soft mist upon the evening shore,At once a lovely isle before me lay,Smooth, and with tender verdure covered o'er,As if just risen from its calm inland bay;Sloped each way gently to the grassy edge,And the small waves that dallied with the sedge.The barley was just reaped; the heavy sheavesLay on the stubble-field; the tall maize stoodDark in its summer growth, and shook its leaves,And bright the sunlight played on the young wood —For fifty years ago, the old men say,The Briton hewed their ancient groves away.I saw where fountains freshened the green land,And where the pleasant road, from door to door,With rows of cherry-trees on either hand,Went wandering all that fertile region o'er —Rogue's Island once – but when the rogues were dead,Rhode Island was the name it took instead.Beautiful island! then it only seemedA lovely stranger; it has grown a friend.I gazed on its smooth slopes, but never dreamedHow soon that green and quiet isle would sendThe treasures of its womb across the sea,To warm a poet's room and boil his tea.Dark anthracite! that reddenest on my hearth,Thou in those island mines didst slumber long;But now thou art come forth to move the earth,And put to shame the men that mean thee wrong:Thou shalt be coals of fire to those that hate thee,And warm the shins of all that underrate thee.Yea, they did wrong thee foully – they who mockedThy honest face, and said thou wouldst not burn;Of hewing thee to chimney-pieces talked,And grew profane, and swore, in bitter scorn,That men might to thy inner caves retire,And there, unsinged, abide the day of fire.Yet is thy greatness nigh. I pause to state,That I too have seen greatness – even I —Shook hands with Adams, stared at La Fayette,When, barehead, in the hot noon of July,He would not let the umbrella be held o'er him,For which three cheers burst from the mob before him.And I have seen – not many months ago —An eastern Governor in chapeau brasAnd military coat, a glorious show!Ride forth to visit the reviews, and ah!How oft he smiled and bowed to Jonathan!How many hands were shook and votes were won!'Twas a great Governor; thou too shalt beGreat in thy turn, and wide shall spread thy fameAnd swiftly; furthest Maine shall hear of thee,And cold New Brunswick gladden at thy name;And, faintly through its sleets, the weeping isleThat sends the Boston folks their cod shall smile.For thou shalt forge vast railways, and shalt heatThe hissing rivers into steam, and driveHuge masses from thy mines, on iron feet,Walking their steady way, as if alive,Northward, till everlasting ice besets thee,And South as far as the grim Spaniard lets thee.Thou shalt make mighty engines swim the sea,Like its own monsters – boats that for a guineaWill take a man to Havre – and shalt beThe moving soul of many a spinning-jenny,And ply thy shuttles, till a bard can wearAs good a suit of broadcloth as the mayor.Then we will laugh at winter when we hearThe grim old churl about our dwellings rave:Thou, from that "ruler of the inverted year,"Shalt pluck the knotty sceptre Cowper gave,And pull him from his sledge, and drag him in,And melt the icicles from off his chin.

THE NEW MOON

When, as the garish day is done,Heaven burns with the descended sun,'Tis passing sweet to mark,Amid that flush of crimson light,The new moon's modest bow grow bright,As earth and sky grow dark.Few are the hearts too cold to feelA thrill of gladness o'er them steal,When first the wandering eyeSees faintly, in the evening blaze,That glimmering curve of tender raysJust planted in the sky.The sight of that young crescent bringsThoughts of all fair and youthful things —The hopes of early years;And childhood's purity and grace,And joys that like a rainbow chaseThe passing shower of tears.The captive yields him to the dreamOf freedom, when that virgin beamComes out upon the air;And painfully the sick man triesTo fix his dim and burning eyesOn the sweet promise there.Most welcome to the lover's sightGlitters that pure, emerging light;For prattling poets say,That sweetest is the lovers' walk,And tenderest is their murmured talk,Beneath its gentle ray.And there do graver men beholdA type of errors, loved of old,Forsaken and forgiven;And thoughts and wishes not of earthJust opening in their early birth,Like that new light in heaven.

OCTOBER

Ay, thou art welcome, heaven's delicious breath!When woods begin to wear the crimson leaf,And suns grow meek, and the meek suns grow brief,And the year smiles as it draws near its death.Wind of the sunny south! oh, still delayIn the gay woods and in the golden air,Like to a good old age released from care,Journeying, in long serenity, away.In such a bright, late quiet, would that IMight wear out life like thee, mid bowers and brooks,And, dearer yet, the sunshine of kind looks,And music of kind voices ever nigh;And when my last sand twinkled in the glass,Pass silently from men, as thou dost pass.

THE DAMSEL OF PERU

Where olive-leaves were twinkling in every wind that blew,There sat beneath the pleasant shade a damsel of Peru.Betwixt the slender boughs, as they opened to the air,Came glimpses of her ivory neck and of her glossy hair;And sweetly rang her silver voice, within that shady nook,As from the shrubby glen is heard the sound of hidden brook.'Tis a song of love and valor, in the noble Spanish tongue,That once upon the sunny plains of old Castile was sung;When, from their mountain-holds, on the Moorish rout below,Had rushed the Christians like a flood, and swept away the foe.Awhile that melody is still, and then breaks forth anewA wilder rhyme, a livelier note, of freedom and Peru.For she has bound the sword to a youthful lover's side,And sent him to the war the day she should have been his bride,And bade him bear a faithful heart to battle for the right,And held the fountains of her eyes till he was out of sight.Since the parting kiss was given, six weary months are fled,And yet the foe is in the land, and blood must yet be shed.A white hand parts the branches, a lovely face looks forth,And bright dark eyes gaze steadfastly and sadly toward the north.Thou look'st in vain, sweet maiden, the sharpest sight would failTo spy a sign of human life abroad in all the vale;For the noon is coming on, and the sunbeams fiercely beat,And the silent hills and forest-tops seem reeling in the heat.That white hand is withdrawn, that fair sad face is gone,But the music of that silver voice is flowing sweetly on,Not as of late, in cheerful tones, but mournfully and low, —A ballad of a tender maid heart-broken long ago,Of him who died in battle, the youthful and the brave,And her who died of sorrow, upon his early grave.And see, along that mountain-slope, a fiery horseman ride;Mark his torn plume, his tarnished belt, the sabre at his side.His spurs are buried rowel-deep, he rides with loosened rain,There's blood upon his charger's flank and foam upon the mane.He speeds him toward the olive-grove, along that shaded hill!God shield the helpless maiden there, if he should mean her ill!And suddenly that song has ceased, and suddenly I hearA shriek sent up amid the shade, a shriek – but not of fear.For tender accents follow, and tender pauses speakThe overflow of gladness, when words are all too weak;"I lay my good sword at thy feet, for now Peru is free,And I am come to dwell beside the olive-grove with thee."

THE AFRICAN CHIEF.7

Chained in the market-place he stood,A man of giant frame,Amid the gathering multitudeThat shrunk to hear his name —All stern of look and strong of limb,His dark eye on the ground: —And silently they gazed on him,As on a lion bound.Vainly, but well that chief had fought,He was a captive now,Yet pride, that fortune humbles not,Was written on his brow.The scars his dark broad bosom woreShowed warrior true and brave;A prince among his tribe before,He could not be a slave.Then to his conqueror he spake:"My brother is a king;Undo this necklace from my neck,And take this bracelet ring,And send me where my brother reigns,And I will fill thy handsWith store of ivory from the plains,And gold-dust from the sands.""Not for thy ivory nor thy goldWill I unbind thy chain;That bloody hand shall never holdThe battle-spear again.A price that nation never gaveShall yet be paid for thee;For thou shalt be the Christian's slave,In lands beyond the sea."Then wept the warrior chief, and badeTo shred his locks away;And one by one, each heavy braidBefore the victor lay.Thick were the platted locks, and long,And closely hidden thereShone many a wedge of gold amongThe dark and crispèd hair."Look, feast thy greedy eye with goldLong kept for sorest need;Take it – thou askest sums untold —And say that I am freed.Take it – my wife, the long, long day,Weeps by the cocoa-tree,And my young children leave their play,And ask in vain for me.""I take thy gold, but I have madeThy fetters fast and strong,And ween that by the cocoa-shadeThy wife will wait thee long."Strong was the agony that shookThe captive's frame to hear,And the proud meaning of his lookWas changed to mortal fear.His heart was broken – crazed his brain:At once his eye grew wild;He struggled fiercely with his chain,Whispered, and wept, and smiled;Yet wore not long those fatal bands,And once, at shut of day,They drew him forth upon the sands,The foul hyena's prey.

SPRING IN TOWN

The country ever has a lagging Spring,Waiting for May to call its violets forth,And June its roses; showers and sunshine bring,Slowly, the deepening verdure o'er the earth;To put their foliage out, the woods are slack,And one by one the singing-birds come back.Within the city's bounds the time of flowersComes earlier. Let a mild and sunny day,Such as full often, for a few bright hours,Breathes through the sky of March the airs of May,Shine on our roofs and chase the wintry gloom —And lo! our borders glow with sudden bloom.For the wide sidewalks of Broadway are thenGorgeous as are a rivulet's banks in June,That overhung with blossoms, through its glen,Slides soft away beneath the sunny noon,And they who search the untrodden wood for flowersMeet in its depths no lovelier ones than ours.For here are eyes that shame the violet,Or the dark drop that on the pansy lies,And foreheads, white, as when in clusters set,The anemones by forest-mountains rise;And the spring-beauty boasts no tenderer streakThan the soft red on many a youthful cheek.And thick about those lovely temples lieLocks that the lucky Vignardonne has curled,Thrice happy man! whose trade it is to buy,And bake, and braid those love-knots of the world;Who curls of every glossy color keepest,And sellest, it is said, the blackest cheapest.And well thou mayst – for Italy's brown maidsSend the dark locks with which their brows are dressed,And Gascon lasses, from their jetty braids,Crop half, to buy a ribbon for the rest;But the fresh Norman girls their tresses spare,And the Dutch damsel keeps her flaxen hair.Then, henceforth, let no maid nor matron grieve,To see her locks of an unlovely hue,Frouzy or thin, for liberal art shall giveSuch piles of curls as Nature never knew.Eve, with her veil of tresses, at the sightHad blushed, outdone, and owned herself a fright.Soft voices and light laughter wake the street,Like notes of woodbirds, and where'er the eyeThreads the long way, plumes wave, and twinkling feetFall light, as hastes that crowd of beauty by.The ostrich, hurrying o'er the desert space,Scarce bore those tossing plumes with fleeter pace.No swimming Juno gait, of languor born,Is theirs, but a light step of freest grace, —Light as Camilla's o'er the unbent corn, —A step that speaks the spirit of the place,Since Quiet, meek old dame, was driven awayTo Sing Sing and the shores of Tappan Bay.Ye that dash by in chariots! who will careFor steeds or footmen now? ye cannot showFair face, and dazzling dress, and graceful air,And last edition of the shape! Ah, no,These sights are for the earth and open sky,And your loud wheels unheeded rattle by.

THE GLADNESS OF NATURE

Is this a time to be cloudy and sad,When our mother Nature laughs around;When even the deep blue heavens look glad,And gladness breathes from the blossoming ground?There are notes of joy from the hang-bird and wren,And the gossip of swallows through all the sky;The ground-squirrel gayly chirps by his den,And the wilding bee hums merrily by.The clouds are at play in the azure spaceAnd their shadows at play on the bright-green vale,And here they stretch to the frolic chase,And there they roll on the easy gale.There's a dance of leaves in that aspen bower,There's a titter of winds in that beechen tree,There's a smile on the fruit, and a smile on the flower,And a laugh from the brook that runs to the sea.And look at the broad-faced sun, how he smilesOn the dewy earth that smiles in his ray,On the leaping waters and gay young isles;Ay, look, and he'll smile thy gloom away.

THE DISINTERRED WARRIOR

Gather him to his grave again,And solemnly and softly lay,Beneath the verdure of the plain,The warrior's scattered bones away.Pay the deep reverence, taught of old,The homage of man's heart to death;Nor dare to trifle with the mouldOnce hallowed by the Almighty's breath.The soul hath quickened every part —That remnant of a martial brow,Those ribs that held the mighty heart,That strong arm – strong no longer now.Spare them, each mouldering relic spare,Of God's own image; let them rest,Till not a trace shall speak of whereThe awful likeness was impressed.For he was fresher from the handThat formed of earth the human face,And to the elements did standIn nearer kindred than our race.In many a flood to madness tossed,In many a storm has been his path;He hid him not from heat or frost,But met them, and defied their wrath.Then they were kind – the forests here,Rivers, and stiller waters, paidA tribute to the net and spearOf the red ruler of the shade.Fruits on the woodland branches lay,Roots in the shaded soil below;The stars looked forth to teach his way;The still earth warned him of the foe.A noble race! but they are gone,With their old forests wide and deep,And we have built our homes uponFields where their generations sleep.Their fountains slake our thirst at noon,Upon their fields our harvest waves,Our lovers woo beneath their moon —Then let us spare, at least, their graves.