Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant

MIDSUMMER

A power is on the earth and in the airFrom which the vital spirit shrinks afraid,And shelters him, in nooks of deepest shade,From the hot steam and from the fiery glare.Look forth upon the earth – her thousand plantsAre smitten; even the dark sun-loving maizeFaints in the field beneath the torrid blaze;The herd beside the shaded fountain pants;For life is driven from all the landscape brown;The bird has sought his tree, the snake his den,The trout floats dead in the hot stream, and menDrop by the sun-stroke in the populous town;As if the Day of Fire had dawned, and sentIts deadly breath into the firmament.

THE GREEK PARTISAN

Our free flag is dancingIn the free mountain air,And burnished arms are glancing,And warriors gathering there;And fearless is the little trainWhose gallant bosoms shield it;The blood that warms their hearts shall stainThat banner, ere they yield it.– Each dark eye is fixed on earth,And brief each solemn greeting;There is no look nor sound of mirth,Where those stern men are meeting.They go to the slaughterTo strike the sudden blow,And pour on earth, like water,The best blood of the foe;To rush on them from rock and height,And clear the narrow valley,Or fire their camp at dead of night,And fly before they rally.– Chains are round our country pressed,And cowards have betrayed her,And we must make her bleeding breastThe grave of the invader.Not till from her fettersWe raise up Greece again,And write, in bloody letters,That tyranny is slain, —Oh, not till then the smile shall stealAcross those darkened faces,Nor one of all those warriors feelHis children's dear embraces.– Reap we not the ripened wheat,Till yonder hosts are flying,And all their bravest, at our feet,Like autumn sheaves are lying.

THE TWO GRAVES

'Tis a bleak wild hill, but green and brightIn the summer warmth and the mid-day light;There's the hum of the bee and the chirp of the wrenAnd the dash of the brook from the alder-glen.There's the sound of a bell from the scattered flock,And the shade of the beech lies cool on the rock,And fresh from the west is the free wind's breath; —There is nothing here that speaks of death.Far yonder, where orchards and gardens lie,And dwellings cluster, 'tis there men die,They are born, they die, and are buried near,Where the populous graveyard lightens the bier.For strict and close are the ties that bindIn death the children of human-kind;Yea, stricter and closer than those of life, —'Tis a neighborhood that knows no strife.They are noiselessly gathered – friend and foe —To the still and dark assemblies below.Without a frown or a smile they meet,Each pale and calm in his winding-sheet;In that sullen home of peace and gloom,Crowded, like guests in a banquet-room.Yet there are graves in this lonely spot,Two humble graves, – but I meet them not.I have seen them, – eighteen years are pastSince I found their place in the brambles last, —The place where, fifty winters agoAn aged man in his locks of snow,And an aged matron, withered with years,Were solemnly laid! – but not with tears.For none, who sat by the light of their hearth,Beheld their coffins covered with earth;Their kindred were far, and their children dead,When the funeral-prayer was coldly said.Two low green hillocks, two small gray stones,Rose over the place that held their bones;But the grassy hillocks are levelled again,And the keenest eye might search in vain,'Mong briers, and ferns, and paths of sheep,For the spot where the aged couple sleep.Yet well might they lay, beneath the soilOf this lonely spot, that man of toil,And trench the strong hard mould with the spade,Where never before a grave was made;For he hewed the dark old woods away,And gave the virgin fields to the day;And the gourd and the bean, beside his door,Bloomed where their flowers ne'er opened before;And the maize stood up, and the bearded ryeBent low in the breath of an unknown sky.'Tis said that when life is ended here,The spirit is borne to a distant sphere;That it visits its earthly home no more,Nor looks on the haunts it loved before.But why should the bodiless soul be sentFar off, to a long, long banishment?Talk not of the light and the living green!It will pine for the dear familiar scene;It will yearn, in that strange bright world, to beholdThe rock and the stream it knew of old.'Tis a cruel creed, believe it not!Death to the good is a milder lot.They are here, – they are here, – that harmless pair,In the yellow sunshine and flowing air,In the light cloud-shadows that slowly pass,In the sounds that rise from the murmuring grass.They sit where their humble cottage stood,They walk by the waving edge of the wood,And list to the long-accustomed flowOf the brook that wets the rocks below,Patient, and peaceful, and passionless,As seasons on seasons swiftly press,They watch, and wait, and linger around,Till the day when their bodies shall leave the ground.

THE CONJUNCTION OF JUPITER AND VENUS.8

I would not always reason. The straight pathWearies us with the never-varying lines,And we grow melancholy. I would makeReason my guide, but she should sometimes sitPatiently by the way-side, while I tracedThe mazes of the pleasant wildernessAround me. She should be my counsellor,But not my tyrant. For the spirit needsImpulses from a deeper source than hers,And there are motions, in the mind of man,That she must look upon with awe. I bowReverently to her dictates, but not lessHold to the fair illusions of old time —Illusions that shed brightness over life,And glory over Nature. Look, even now,Where two bright planets in the twilight meet,Upon the saffron heaven, – the imperial starOf Jove, and she that from her radiant urnPours forth the light of love. Let me believe,Awhile, that they are met for ends of good,Amid the evening glory, to conferOf men and their affairs, and to shed downKind influence. Lo! they brighten as we gaze,And shake out softer fires! The great earth feelsThe gladness and the quiet of the time.Meekly the mighty river, that infoldsThis mighty city, smooths his front, and farGlitters and burns even the rocky baseOf the dark heights that bound him to the west;And a deep murmur, from the many streets,Rises like a thanksgiving. Put we henceDark and sad thoughts awhile – there's time for themHereafter – on the morrow we will meet,With melancholy looks, to tell our griefs,And make each other wretched; this calm hour,This balmy, blessed evening, we will giveTo cheerful hopes and dreams of happy days,Born of the meeting of those glorious stars.Enough of drought has parched the year, and scaredThe land with dread of famine. Autumn, yet,Shall make men glad with unexpected fruits.The dog-star shall shine harmless: genial daysShall softly glide away into the keenAnd wholesome cold of winter; he that fearsThe pestilence, shall gaze on those pure beams,And breathe, with confidence, the quiet air.Emblems of power and beauty! well may theyShine brightest on our borders, and withdrawToward the great Pacific, marking outThe path of empire. Thus in our own land,Ere long, the better Genius of our race,Having encompassed earth, and tamed its tribes,Shall sit him down beneath the farthest west,By the shore of that calm ocean, and look backOn realms made happy.Light the nuptial torch,And say the glad, yet solemn rite, that knitsThe youth and maiden. Happy days to themThat wed this evening! – a long life of love,And blooming sons and daughters! Happy theyBorn at this hour, for they shall see an ageWhiter and holier than the past, and goLate to their graves. Men shall wear softer hearts,And shudder at the butcheries of war,As now at other murders.Hapless Greece!Enough of blood has wet thy rocks, and stainedThy rivers; deep enough thy chains have wornTheir links into thy flesh; the sacrificeOf thy pure maidens, and thy innocent babes,And reverend priests, has expiated allThy crimes of old. In yonder mingling lightsThere is an omen of good days for thee.Thou shalt arise from midst the dust and sitAgain among the nations. Thine own armShall yet redeem thee. Not in wars like thineThe world takes part. Be it a strife of kings, —Despot with despot battling for a throne, —And Europe shall be stirred throughout her realms,Nations shall put on harness, and shall fallUpon each other, and in all their boundsThe wailing of the childless shall not cease.Thine is a war for liberty, and thouMust fight it single-handed. The old worldLooks coldly on the murderers of thy race,And leaves thee to the struggle; and the new, —I fear me thou couldst tell a shameful taleOf fraud and lust of gain; – thy treasury drained,And Missolonghi fallen. Yet thy wrongsShall put new strength into thy heart and hand,And God and thy good sword shall yet work out,For thee, a terrible deliverance.

A SUMMER RAMBLE

The quiet August noon has come;A slumberous silence fills the sky,The fields are still, the woods are dumb,In glassy sleep the waters lie.And mark yon soft white clouds that restAbove our vale, a moveless throng;The cattle on the mountain's breastEnjoy the grateful shadow long.Oh, how unlike those merry hours,In early June, when Earth laughs out,When the fresh winds make love to flowers,And woodlands sing and waters shout.When in the grass sweet voices talk,And strains of tiny music swellFrom every moss-cup of the rock,From every nameless blossom's bell.But now a joy too deep for sound,A peace no other season knows,Hushes the heavens and wraps the ground,The blessing of supreme repose.Away! I will not be, to-day,The only slave of toil and care,Away from desk and dust! away!I'll be as idle as the air.Beneath the open sky abroad,Among the plants and breathing things,The sinless, peaceful works of God,I'll share the calm the season brings.Come, thou, in whose soft eyes I seeThe gentle meanings of thy heart,One day amid the woods with me,From men and all their cares apart.And where, upon the meadow's breast,The shadow of the thicket lies,The blue wild-flowers thou gatherestShall glow yet deeper near thine eyes.Come, and when mid the calm profound,I turn, those gentle eyes to seek,They, like the lovely landscape round,Of innocence and peace shall speak.Rest here, beneath the unmoving shade,And on the silent valleys gaze,Winding and widening, till they fadeIn yon soft ring of summer haze.The village trees their summits rearStill as its spire, and yonder flockAt rest in those calm fields appearAs chiselled from the lifeless rock.One tranquil mount the scene o'erlooks —There the hushed winds their sabbath keep,While a near hum from bees and brooksComes faintly like the breath of sleep.Well may the gazer deem that when,Worn with the struggle and the strife,And heart-sick at the wrongs of men,The good forsakes the scene of life;Like this deep quiet that, awhile,Lingers the lovely landscape o'er,Shall be the peace whose holy smileWelcomes him to a happier shore.

A SCENE ON THE BANKS OF THE HUDSON

Cool shades and dews are round my way,And silence of the early day;Mid the dark rocks that watch his bed,Glitters the mighty Hudson spread,Unrippled, save by drops that fallFrom shrubs that fringe his mountain wall;And o'er the clear still water swellsThe music of the Sabbath bells.All, save this little nook of land,Circled with trees, on which I stand;All, save that line of hills which lieSuspended in the mimic sky —Seems a blue void, above, below,Through which the white clouds come and go;And from the green world's farthest steepI gaze into the airy deep.Loveliest of lovely things are they,On earth, that soonest pass away.The rose that lives its little hourIs prized beyond the sculptured flower.Even love, long tried and cherished long,Becomes more tender and more strongAt thought of that insatiate graveFrom which its yearnings cannot save.River! in this still hour thou hastToo much of heaven on earth to last;Nor long may thy still waters lie,An image of the glorious sky.Thy fate and mine are not repose,And ere another evening close,Thou to thy tides shalt turn again,And I to seek the crowd of men.

THE HURRICANE.9

Lord of the winds! I feel thee nigh,I know thy breath in the burning sky!And I wait, with a thrill in every vein,For the coming of the hurricane!And lo! on the wing of the heavy gales,Through the boundless arch of heaven he sails;Silent and slow, and terribly strong,The mighty shadow is borne along,Like the dark eternity to come;While the world below, dismayed and dumb,Through the calm of the thick hot atmosphere,Looks up at its gloomy folds with fear.They darken fast; and the golden blazeOf the sun is quenched in the lurid haze,And he sends through the shade a funeral ray —A glare that is neither night nor day,A beam that touches, with hues of death,The clouds above and the earth beneath.To its covert glides the silent bird,While the hurricane's distant voice is heardUplifted among the mountains round,And the forests hear and answer the sound.He is come! he is come! do ye not beholdHis ample robes on the wind unrolled?Giant of air! we bid thee hail! —How his gray skirts tops in the whirling gale;How his huge and writhing arms are bentTo clasp the zone of the firmament,And fold at length, in their dark embrace,From mountain to mountain the visible space.Darker – still darker! the whirlwinds bearThe dust of the plains to the middle air:And hark to the crashing, long and loud,Of the chariot of God in the thunder-cloud!You may trace its path by the flashes that startFrom the rapid wheels where'er they dart,As the fire-bolts leap to the world below,And flood the skies with a lurid glow.What roar is that? – 'tis the rain that breaksIn torrents away from the airy lakes,Heavily poured on the shuddering ground,And shedding a nameless horror round.Ah! well-known woods, and mountains, and skies,With the very clouds! – ye are lost to my eyesI seek ye vainly, and see in your placeThe shadowy tempest that sweeps through space,A whirling ocean that fills the wallOf the crystal heaven, and buries allAnd I, cut off from the world, remainAlone with the terrible hurricane.

WILLIAM TELL.10

Chains may subdue the feeble spirit, but thee,Tell, of the iron heart! they could not tame!For thou wert of the mountains; they proclaimThe everlasting creed of liberty.That creed is written on the untrampled snow,Thundered by torrents which no power can hold,Save that of God, when He sends forth His cold,And breathed by winds that through the free heaven blow.Thou, while thy prison-walls were dark around,Didst meditate the lesson Nature taught,And to thy brief captivity was broughtA vision of thy Switzerland unbound.The bitter cup they mingled, strengthened theeFor the great work to set thy country free.

THE HUNTER'S SERENADE

Thy bower is finished, fairest!Fit bower for hunter's bride,Where old woods overshadowThe green savanna's side.I've wandered long, and wandered far,And never have I met,In all this lovely Western land,A spot so lovely yet.But I shall think it fairerWhen thou art come to bless,With thy sweet smile and silver voice,Its silent loveliness.For thee the wild-grape glistensOn sunny knoll and tree,The slim papaya ripens11Its yellow fruit for thee.For thee the duck, on glassy stream,The prairie-fowl shall die;My rifle for thy feast shall bringThe wild-swan from the sky.The forest's leaping panther,Fierce, beautiful, and fleet,Shall yield his spotted hide to beA carpet for thy feet.I know, for thou hast told me,Thy maiden love of flowers;Ah, those that deck thy gardensAre pale compared with ours.When our wide woods and mighty lawnsBloom to the April skies,The earth has no more gorgeous sightTo show to human eyes.In meadows red with blossoms,All summer long, the beeMurmurs, and loads his yellow thighs,For thee, my love, and me.Or wouldst thou gaze at tokensOf ages long ago —Our old oaks stream with mosses,And sprout with mistletoe;And mighty vines, like serpents, climbThe giant sycamore;And trunks, o'erthrown for centuries,Cumber the forest floor;And in the great savanna,The solitary mound,Built by the elder world, o'erlooksThe loneliness around.Come, thou hast not forgottenThy pledge and promise quite,With many blushes murmured,Beneath the evening light.Come, the young violets crowd my door,Thy earliest look to win,And at my silent window-sillThe jessamine peeps in.All day the red-bird warblesUpon the mulberry near,And the night-sparrow trills her songAll night, with none to hear.

THE GREEK BOY

Gone are the glorious Greeks of old,Glorious in mien and mind;Their bones are mingled with the mould,Their dust is on the wind;The forms they hewed from living stoneSurvive the waste of years, alone,And, scattered with their ashes, showWhat greatness perished long ago.Yet fresh the myrtles there; the springsGush brightly as of yore;Flowers blossom from the dust of kings,As many an age before.There Nature moulds as nobly now,As e'er of old, the human brow;And copies still the martial formThat braved Platæa's battle-storm.Boy! thy first looks were taught to seekTheir heaven in Hellas' skies;Her airs have tinged thy dusky cheek,Her sunshine lit thine eyes;Thine ears have drunk the woodland strainsHeard by old poets, and thy veinsSwell with the blood of demigods,That slumber in thy country's sods.Now is thy nation free, though late;Thy elder brethren broke —Broke, ere thy spirit felt its weight —The intolerable yoke.And Greece, decayed, dethroned, doth seeHer youth renewed in such as thee:A shoot of that old vine that madeThe nations silent in its shade.

THE PAST

Thou unrelenting Past!Strong are the barriers round thy dark domain,And fetters, sure and fast,Hold all that enter thy unbreathing reign.Far in thy realm withdrawn,Old empires sit in sullenness and gloom,And glorious ages goneLie deep within the shadow of thy womb.Childhood, with all its mirth,Youth, Manhood, Age that draws us to the ground,And last, Man's Life on earth,Glide to thy dim dominions, and are bound.Thou hast my better years;Thou hast my earlier friends, the good, the kind,Yielded to thee with tears —The venerable form, the exalted mind.My spirit yearns to bringThe lost ones back – yearns with desire intense,And struggles hard to wringThy bolts apart, and pluck thy captives thence.In vain; thy gates denyAll passage save to those who hence depart;Nor to the streaming eyeThou giv'st them back – nor to the broken heart.In thy abysses hideBeauty and excellence unknown; to theeEarth's wonder and her prideAre gathered, as the waters to the sea;Labors of good to man,Unpublished charity, unbroken faith,Love, that midst grief began,And grew with years, and faltered not in death.Full many a mighty nameLurks in thy depths, unuttered, unrevered;With thee are silent fame,Forgotten arts, and wisdom disappeared.Thine for a space are they —Yet shalt thou yield thy treasures up at last:Thy gates shall yet give way,Thy bolts shall fall, inexorable Past!All that of good and fairHas gone into thy womb from earliest time,Shall then come forth to wearThe glory and the beauty of its prime.They have not perished – no!Kind words, remembered voices once so sweet,Smiles, radiant long ago,And features, the great soul's apparent seat.All shall come back; each tieOf pure affection shall be knit again;Alone shall Evil die,And Sorrow dwell a prisoner in thy reign.And then shall I beholdHim, by whose kind paternal side I sprung,And her, who, still and cold,Fills the next grave – the beautiful and young.

"UPON THE MOUNTAIN'S DISTANT HEAD."

Upon the mountain's distant head,With trackless snows forever white,Where all is still, and cold, and dead,Late shines the day's departing light.But far below those icy rocks,The vales, in summer bloom arrayed,Woods full of birds, and fields of flocks,Are dim with mist and dark with shade.'Tis thus, from warm and kindly hearts,And eyes where generous meanings burn,Earliest the light of life departs,But lingers with the cold and stern.

THE EVENING WIND

Spirit that breathest through my lattice, thouThat cool'st the twilight of the sultry day,Gratefully flows thy freshness round my brow;Thou hast been out upon the deep at play,Riding all day the wild blue waves till now,Roughening their crests, and scattering high their spray,And swelling the white sail. I welcome theeTo the scorched land, thou wanderer of the sea!Nor I alone; a thousand bosoms roundInhale thee in the fulness of delight;And languid forms rise up, and pulses boundLivelier, at coming of the wind of night;And, languishing to hear thy grateful sound,Lies the vast inland stretched beyond the sight.Go forth into the gathering shade; go forth,God's blessing breathed upon the fainting earth!Go, rock the little wood-bird in his nest,Curl the still waters, bright with stars, and rouseThe wide old wood from his majestic rest,Summoning from the innumerable boughsThe strange, deep harmonies that haunt his breast:Pleasant shall be thy way where meekly bowsThe shutting flower, and darkling waters pass,And where the o'ershadowing branches sweep the grass.The faint old man shall lean his silver headTo feel thee; thou shalt kiss the child asleep,And dry the moistened curls that overspreadHis temples, while his breathing grows more deep;And they who stand about the sick man's bed,Shall joy to listen to thy distant sweep,And softly part his curtains to allowThy visit, grateful to his burning brow.Go – but the circle of eternal change,Which is the life of Nature, shall restore,With sounds and scents from all thy mighty range,Thee to thy birthplace of the deep once more;Sweet odors in the sea-air, sweet and strange,Shall tell the home-sick mariner of the shore;And, listening to thy murmur, he shall deemHe hears the rustling leaf and running stream.

"WHEN THE FIRMAMENT QUIVERS WITH DAYLIGHT'S YOUNG BEAM."

When the firmament quivers with daylight's young beam,And the woodlands awaking burst into a hymn,And the glow of the sky blazes back from the stream,How the bright ones of heaven in the brightness grow dim!Oh! 'tis sad, in that moment of glory and song,To see, while the hill-tops are waiting the sun,The glittering band that kept watch all night longO'er Love and o'er Slumber, go out one by one:Till the circle of ether, deep, ruddy, and vast,Scarce glimmers with one of the train that were there;And their leader, the day-star, the brightest and last,Twinkles faintly and fades in that desert of air.Thus, Oblivion, from midst of whose shadow we came,Steals o'er us again when life's twilight is gone;And the crowd of bright names, in the heaven of fame,Grow pale and are quenched as the years hasten on.Let them fade – but we'll pray that the age, in whose flight,Of ourselves and our friends the remembrance shall die,May rise o'er the world, with the gladness and lightOf the morning that withers the stars from the sky.

"INNOCENT CHILD AND SNOW-WHITE FLOWER."

Innocent child and snow-white flower!Well are ye paired in your opening hour.Thus should the pure and the lovely meet,Stainless with stainless, and sweet with sweet.White as those leaves, just blown apart;Are the folds of thy own young heart;Guilty passion and cankering careNever have left their traces there.Artless one! though thou gazest nowO'er the white blossom with earnest brow,Soon will it tire thy childish eye;Fair as it is, thou wilt throw it by.Throw it aside in thy weary hour,Throw to the ground the fair white flower;Yet, as thy tender years depart,Keep that white and innocent heart.

TO THE RIVER ARVE

SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN AT A HAMLET NEAR THE FOOT OF MONT BLANCNot from the sands or cloven rocks,Thou rapid Arve! thy waters flow;Nor earth, within her bosom, locksThy dark unfathomed wells below.Thy springs are in the cloud, thy streamBegins to move and murmur firstWhere ice-peaks feel the noonday beam,Or rain-storms on the glacier burst.Born where the thunder and the blastAnd morning's earliest light are born,Thou rushest swoln, and loud, and fast,By these low homes, as if in scorn:Yet humbler springs yield purer waves;And brighter, glassier streams than thine,Sent up from earth's unlighted caves,With heaven's own beam and image shine.Yet stay; for here are flowers and trees;Warm rays on cottage-roofs are here;And laugh of girls, and hum of bees,Here linger till thy waves are clear.Thou heedest not – thou hastest on;From steep to steep thy torrent falls;Till, mingling with the mighty Rhone,It rests beneath Geneva's walls.Rush on – but were there one with meThat loved me, I would light my hearthHere, where with God's own majestyAre touched the features of the earth.By these old peaks, white, high, and vast,Still rising as the tempests beat,Here would I dwell, and sleep, at last,Among the blossoms at their feet.

TO COLE, THE PAINTER, DEPARTING FOR EUROPE