William C. Bryant Quotes - Page 4

Still sweet with blossoms is the year's fresh prime.

Maidens hearts are always soft: Would that men's were truer!

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.

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

It is a sultry day; the sun has drunk The dew that lay upon the morning grass; There is no rustling in the lofty elm That canopies my dwelling, and its shade Scarce cools me. All is silent, save the faint And interrupted murmur of the bee, Settling on the sick flowers, And then again Instantly on the wing.

God hath yoked to guilt her pale tormentor,--misery.

On rolls the stream with a perpetual sigh; The rocks moan wildly as it passes by; Hyssop and wormwood border all the strand, And not a flower adorns the dreary land.

The victory of endurance born.

There is a Power whose care Teaches thy way.

Oh, Constellations of the early night That sparkled brighter as the twilight died, And made the darkness glorious! I have seen Your rays grow dim upon the horizon's edge And sink behind the mountains. I have seen The great Orion, with his jewelled belt, That large-limbed warrior of the skies, go down Into the gloom. Beside him sank a crowd Of shining ones.

Ah, passing few are they who speak, Wild, stormy month! in praise of thee; Yet though thy winds are loud and bleak, Thou art a welcome month to me. For thou, to northern lands, again The glad and glorious sun dost bring, And thou hast joined the gentle train And wear'st the gentle name of Spring.

Can anything be imagined more abhorrent to every sentiment of generosity and justice, than the law which arms the rich with the legal right to fix, by assize, the wages of the poor? If this is not slavery, we have forgotten its definition. Strike the right of associating for the sale of labor from the privileges of a freeman, and you may as well bind him to a master, or ascribe him to the soil.

Ah, never shall the land forget How gush'd the life-blood of the brave, Gush'd warm with hope and courage yet, Upon the soil they fought to save!

Come when the rains Have glazed the snow and clothed the trees with ice, While the slant sun of February pours Into the bowers a flood of light. Approach! The incrusted surface shall upbear thy steps And the broad arching portals of the grove Welcome thy entering.

I hear the howl of the wind that brings The long drear storm on its heavy wings.

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

The birch-bark canoe of the savage seems to me one of the most beautiful and perfect things of the kind constructed by human art.

Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood?

The sad and solemn night hath yet her multitude of cheerful fires; The glorious host of light walk the dark hemisphere till she retires; All through her silent watches, gliding slow, Her constellations come, and climb the heavens, and go.

Glorious are the woods in their latest gold and crimson, Yet our full-leaved willows are in the freshest green. Such a kindly autumn, so mercifully dealing With the growths of summer, I never yet have seen.

War, like all other situations of danger and of change, calls forth the exertion of admirable intellectual qualities and great virtues, and it is only by dwelling on these, and keeping out of sight the sufferings and sorrows, and all the crimes and evils that follow in its train, that it has its glory in the eyes of men.

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.

Ah! never shall the land forget.

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.

The rugged trees are mingling Their flowery sprays in love; The ivy climbs the laurel To clasp the boughs above.