William Cullen Bryant Quotes (61 Quotes)

As once, beneath the fragrant shade
Of myrtles breathing heaven's own air,
The children, Love and Folly, played--
A quarrel rose betwixt the pair.

Summer wanes the children are grownFun and frolic no more he knows. . . .

Love said the gods should do him right--
But Folly vowed to do it then,
And struck him, o'er the orbs of sight,
So hard, he never saw again.

The sweet calm sunshine of October, now warms the low spot upon its grassy mould The purple oak-leaf falls the birchen bough Drops its bright spoil like arrow-heads of gold.

Vainly the fowler's eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, As, darkly painted on the crimson sky, Thy figure floats along.

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 earth may ring, from shore to shore,With echoes of a glorious name,But he, whose loss our tears deplore,Has left behind him more than fame.

Thou blossom bright with autumn dew, And colored with the heaven's own blue. . . .

So live, that when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan which moves To that mysterious realm where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of death, Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, Scourged to his dungeon, but sustained and soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave Like one that wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

The sounds I had heard seemed worthy to mingle with this bright and perfumed atmosphere, and to thrill the beautiful scenery around me.

The praise of those who sleep in earth,
The pleasant memory of their worth,
The hope to meet when life is past,
Shall heal the tortured mind at last.

And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died, The fair meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side. . . .

Is this a time to be cloudy and sad,When our mother Nature laughs aroundWhen even the deep blue heavens look glad,And gladness breathes from the blossoming ground

Ah never shall the land forgetHow gushed the life-blood of her brave --Gushed, warm with hope and courage yet,Upon the soil they fought to save.

How shall I know thee in the sphere which keepsThe disembodied spirits of the dead,When all of thee that time could wither sleepsAnd perishes among the dust we tread

So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers.

The horrid tale of perjury and strife,Murder and spoil, which men call history.

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.

Yet will that beauteous image make The dreary sea less drear And thy remembered smile will wake The hope that tramples fear

The summer morn is bright and fresh, the birds are darting by As if they loved to breast the breeze that sweeps the cool clear sky.

The visions of my youth are pastToo bright, too beautiful to last.

The stormy March has come at last, With winds and clouds and changing skies I hear the rushing of the blast That through the snowy valley flies.

Autumn, the year's last, loveliest smile.

I stand and calmly wait till the hinges turn for me.

Another hand thy sword shall wield, Another hand the standard wave, Till from the trumpet's mouth is pealed The blast of triumph o'er thy grave.

The hills, Rock-ribbed, and ancient as the sun.

Is not thy home among the flowers?

I shall seeThe hour of death draw near to me,Hope, blossoming within my heart. . . .

The air was fragrant with a thousand trodden aromatic herbs, with fields of lavender, and with the brightest roses blushing in tufts all over the meadows. . . .

Wild was the day the wintry sea Moaned sadly on New England's strand, When first the thoughtful and the free, Our fathers, trod the desert land.

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.

But I behold a fearful sign,To which the white men's eyes are blindTheir race may vanish hence, like mine,And leave no trace behind,Save ruins o'er the region spread,And the white stones above the dead.

All at once A fresher wind sweeps by, and breaks my dream, And I am in the wilderness alone.

And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more.

Man hath no part in all this glorious work The hand that built the firmament hath heaved And smoothed these verdant swells, and sown their slopes With herbage. . . .

I am come to speak
Thy praises.

They talk of short-lived pleasures be it so pain dies as quickly, and lets her weary the fiercest agonies have shortest reign.

The melancholy days have come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown And sear.

Thy early smile has stayed my walkBut midst the gorgeous blooms of May,I passed thee on thy humble stalk.

The victory of endurance born.

So they, who climb to wealth, forgetThe friends in darker fortunes tried.I copied them -- but I regretThat I should ape the ways of pride.

There is a power whose care Teaches thy way along that pathless coast, --

Truth crushed to earth shall rise again The eternal years of God are hers But error, wounded, writhes in pain, and dies among his worshippers.

Ah, why Should we, in the world's riper years, neglect God's ancient sanctuaries, and adore Only among the crowd and under roofs That our frail hands have raised

These struggling tides of life that seem In wayward, aimless course to tend, Are eddies of the mighty stream That rolls to its appointed end.

And thus decreed the court above--
"Since Love is blind from Folly's blow,
Let Folly be the guide of Love,
Where'er the boy may choose to go.

Here the free spirit of mankind, at length, Throws its last fetters off and who shall place A limit to the giant's unchained strength, Or curb his swiftness in the forward race.

A world of blossoms for the bee, Flowers for the sick girl's silent room, For the glad infant sprigs of bloom, We plant with the apple tree.

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.

Raise then the Hymn to Death.