William Cullen Bryant

Selected Poems

Image of Bryant

William Cullen Bryant, n.d.

Thanatopsis

  • To him who in the love of Nature holds
  • Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
  • A various language; for his gayer hours
  • She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
  • And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
  • Into his darker musings, with a mild
  • And healing sympathy, that steals away
  • Their sharpness, e’re he is aware. When thoughts
  • Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
  • Over thy spirit, and sad images
  • Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
  • And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
  • Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;—
  • Go forth, under the open sky, and list
  • To Nature’s teachings, while from all around—
  • Earth and her waters, and the depths of air,—
  • Comes a still voice—Yet a few days, and thee
  • The all-beholding sun shall see no more
  • In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
  • Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
  • Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
  • Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
  • Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,
  • And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
  • Thine individual being, shalt thou go
  • To mix for ever with the elements,
  • To be a brother to the insensible rock
  • And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
  • Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
  • Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.
  • Yet not to thine eternal resting-place
  • Shalt thou retire alone—nor couldst thou wish
  • Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
  • With patriarchs of the infant world—with kings,
  • The powerful of the earth—the wise, the good,
  • Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
  • All in one mighty sepulchre.—The hills
  • Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun,—the vales
  • Stretching in pensive quietness between;
  • The venerable woods—rivers that move
  • In majesty, and the complaining brooks
  • That make the meadows green; and, poured round all,
  • Old ocean’s gray and melancholy waste,—
  • Are but the solemn decorations all
  • Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
  • The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
  • Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
  • Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
  • The globe are but a handful to the tribes
  • That slumber in its bosom.—Take the wings
  • Of morning—and the Barcan desert pierce,
  • Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
  • Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound,
  • Save his own dashings—yet—the dead are there:
  • And millions in those solitudes, since first
  • The flight of years began, have laid them down
  • In their last sleep—the dead reign there alone.
  • So shalt thou rest—-and what, if thou withdraw
  • Unheeded by the living, and no friend
  • Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
  • Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
  • When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
  • Plod on, and each one as before will chase
  • His favourite phantom; yet all these shall leave
  • Their mirth and their employments, and shall come,
  • And make their bed with thee. As the long train
  • Of ages glide away, the sons of men,
  • The youth in life’s green spring, and he who goes
  • In the full strength of years, matron, and maid,
  • And the sweet babe, and the gray-headed man,—
  • Shall one by one be gathered to thy side,
  • By those, who in their turn shall follow them.
  • So live, that when thy summons comes to join
  • The innumerable caravan, that 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 who wraps the drapery of his couch
  • About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
  • To a Waterfowl

  • Whither, midst falling dew,
  • While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
  • Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
  • Thy solitary way?
  • 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.
  • Seek’st thou the plashy brink
  • Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
  • Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
  • On the chafed ocean side?
  • There is a Power whose care
  • Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,—
  • The desert and illimitable air,—
  • Lone wandering, but not lost.
  • All day thy wings have fanned,
  • At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere,
  • Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
  • Though the dark night is near.
  • And soon that toil shall end;
  • Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest,
  • And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend,
  • Soon, o’er thy sheltered nest.
  • Thou’rt gone, the abyss of heaven
  • Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart
  • Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
  • And shall not soon depart.
  • He who, from zone to zone,
  • Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
  • In the long way that I must tread alone,
  • Will lead my steps aright.
  • Sonnet to Cole, the Painter, Departing for Europe

  • Thine eyes shall see the light of distant skies:
  • Yet, COLE! thy heart shall bear to Europe’s strand
  • A living image of thy native land,
  • Such as on thine own glorious canvas lies;
  • Lone lakes—savannas where the bison roves—
  • Rocks rich with summer garlands—solemn streams
  • Skies, where the desert eagle wheels and screams
  • Spring bloom and autumn blaze of boundless groves.
  • Fair scenes shall greet thee where thou goest—fair,
  • But different—everywhere the trace of men,
  • Paths, homes, graves, ruins, from the lowest glen
  • To where life shrinks from the fierce Alpine air,
  • Gaze on them, till the tears shall dim thy sight,
  • But keep that earlier, wilder image bright.
  • Source:

    Poems by William Cullen Bryant is produced by Project Gutenberg and released under a public domain license.

    License

    Icon for the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

    Open Anthology of American Literature Copyright © 2021 by Farrah Cato is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

    Share This Book