William C. Bryant Quotes:

Alas! to seize the moment When the heart inclines to heart, And press a suit with passion, Is not a woman's part. If man come not to gather The roses where they stand, They fade among their foliage, They cannot seek his hand.

Topics: Passion, Heart, Men, Incline, Seize The Moment

Go forth under the open sky, and list To Nature's teachings.

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “Thanatopsis”

Topics: Nature, Teaching, Sky

The moon is at her full, and riding high, Floods the calm fields with light. The airs that hover in the summer sky Are all asleep to-night.

Topics: Summer, Moon, Night, Moon Night, Full Moon

And suns grow meek, and the meek suns grow brief, and the year smiles as it draws near its death.

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “October”

Topics: Years, October, Sun

Difficulty, my brethren, is the nurse of greatness - a harsh nurse, who roughly rocks her foster children into strength and athletic proportion.

Topics: Strength, Children, Greatness, Foster Children, Brethren

Winning isn't everything, but it beats anything in second place.

Topics: Positive, Attitude, Winning, Second Place, Winning Isn't Everything

All that tread, the globe are but a handful to the tribes, that slumber in its bosom.

Topics: Death, Dying, Slumber

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.

Topics: Art, Gay, Laughing

Virtue cannot dwell with slaves, nor reign O'er those who cower to take a tyrant's yoke.

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “The Ages”

Topics: Tyrants, Reign, Yoke, Servitude

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.

Topics: Struggle, Fate, Tides, Aimless Life

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.

Topics: Death, Dream, Lying, Quarry, Pleasant Dreams

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 forever 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 mold.

Topics: Death, Brother, Rocks, Sluggish

It is said to be the manner of hypochondriacs to change often their physician...

Topics: Physicians, Medical, Said, Hypochondriac

I grieve for life's bright promise, just shown and then withdrawn.

Topics: Grieving, Promise

The little windflower, whose just opened eye is blue as the spring heaven it gazes at.

Topics: Spring, Eye, Blue

Thine eyes are springs in whose serene And silent waters heaven is seen. Their lashes are the herbs that look On their young figures in the brook.

Topics: Spring, Eye, Water, Lashes, Serene

Truth gets well if she is run over by a locomotive, while error dies of lockjaw if she scratches her finger.

Topics: Running, Get Well, Errors, Locomotives

The victory of endurance born.

Topics: Victory, Endurance, Born

When April winds Grew soft, the maple burst into a flush Of scarlet flowers. The tulip tree, high up, Opened in airs of June her multiple OF golden chalices to humming birds And silken-wing'd insects of the sky.

Topics: Flower, Air, Wind

To him who in the love of Nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language.

Topics: Love, Language, Speak, Communion With Nature

Gently - so have good men taught - Gently, and without grief, the old shall glide Into the new; the eternal flow of things, Like a bright river of the fields of heaven, Shall journey onward in perpetual peace.

Topics: Death, Grief, Journey

The summer day is closed - the sun is set: Well they have done their office, those bright hours, The latest of whose train goes softly out In the red west. The green blade of the ground Has risen, and herds have cropped it; the young twig Has spread its plaited tissues to the sun; Flowers of the garden and the waste have blown And withered; seeds have fallen upon the soil, From bursting cells, and in their graves await Their resurrection. Insects from the pools Have filled the air awhile with humming wings, That now are still for ever; painted moths Have wandered the blue sky, and died again

Topics: Summer, Flower, Garden, Twigs, Summer Days

Loveliest of lovely things are they, On earth, that soonest pass away. The rose that lives its little hour Is prized beyond the sculptured flower.

Topics: Life, Flower, Rose, Lovely Things, Rose Flower

The rose that lives its little hour Is prized beyone the sculpted flower.

Topics: Nature, Flower, Rose

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.

Topics: Spring, Sunshine, Bird, Singing Birds

Stand here by my side and turn, I pray, On the lake below thy gentle eyes; The clouds hang over it, heavy and gray, And dark and silent the water lies; And out of that frozen mist the snow In wavering flakes begins to flow; Flake after flake, They sink in the dark and silent lake.

Topics: Lying, Eye, Dark, Flakes, Hang Over

Lo! while we are gazing, in swifter haste Stream down the snows, till the air is white, As, myriads by myriads madly chased, They fling themselves from their shadowy height. The fair, frail creatures of middle sky, What speed they make, with their grave so nigh; Flake after flake, To lie in the dark and silent lake!

Topics: Lying, Dark, Air

Self-interest is the most ingenious and persuasive of all the agents that deceive our consciences, while by means of it our unhappy and stubborn prejudices operate in their greatest force.

Topics: Mean, Self, Unhappy

There is a Power whose care Teaches thy way.

Topics: Way, Care, Providence

Music is not merely a study, it is an entertainment; wherever there is music there is a throng of listeners.

Topics: Music, Entertainment, Study

Your peaks are beautiful, ye Apennines! In the soft light of these serenest skies; From the broad highland region, black with pines, Fair as the hills of Paradise they rise, Bathed in the tint Peruvian slaves behold In rosy flushes on the virgin gold.

Topics: Beautiful, Light, Sky, Peruvians

The journalist should be on his guard against publishing what is false in taste or exceptionable in morals.

Topics: Taste, Moral, Journalism

Features, the great soul's apparent seat.

Topics: Soul, Faces, Great Souls

Poetry is that art which selects and arranges the symbols of thought in such a manner as to excite the imagination the most powerfully and delightfully.

Topics: Art, Imagination, Most Powerful

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.

Topics: Stars, Dark, Night, Gliding

The blacks of this region are a cheerful, careless, dirty, race, not hard worked, and in many respects indulgently treated. It is of course the desire of the master that his slaves shall be laborious; on the other hand it is the determination of the slave to lead as easy a life as he can. The master has the power of punishment on his side; the slave, on his, has invincible inclination, and a thousand expedients learned by long practice... Good natured though imperfect and slovenly obedience on one side, is purchased by good treatment on the other.

Topics: Determination, Dirty, Hard Work, Inclination

The sweet calm sunshine of October, now Warms the low spot; upon its grassy mold The pur0ple oak-leaf falls; the birchen bough drops its bright spoil like arrow-heads of gold.

Topics: Sweet, Fall, Sunshine, October And Fall

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.

Topics: Law, Justice, Generosity, Freeman

Autumn, the year's last, loveliest smile.

Topics: Autumn, Years, Lasts, Equinox, Autumn Days

Look on this beautiful world, and read the truth in her fair page.

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “The Ages”

Topics: Beautiful, Earth, Pages, Beautiful World

Eloquence is the poetry of prose.

Topics: Eloquence, Prose

Flowers spring up unsown and die ungathered.

Topics: Spring, Flower

Ah! never shall the land forget How gushed the life-blood of her brave -

Topics: Memorial Day, Blood, Land, Memorial Day Remembrance

Remorse is virtue's root; its fair increase is fruits of innocence and blessedness.

Topics: Roots, Fruit, Innocence, Blessedness

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

Topics: Sadness, Years, Wind, Meadows, Sears

Glorious are the woods in their latest gold and crimson.

source: - "The Third of November". Poem by William C. Bryant (1861), first published in William C. Bryant "Thirty Poems" (pp. 112-115), 1864.

Topics: Autumn, Gold, Woods, Summer To Fall, Fall Autumn

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

Topics: Autumn, Blue, Heaven

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...

Topics: Flower, Air, Rose, Meadows, Blushing

I gazed upon the glorious sky And the green mountains round, And thought that when I came to lie At rest within the ground, 'Twere pleasant, that in flowery June When brooks send up a cheerful tune, And groves a joyous sound, The sexton's hand, my grave to make, The rich, green mountain-turf should break.

Topics: Spring, Lying, June, Turf

There is a day of sunny rest For every dark and troubled night; And grief may hide an evening guest, But joy shall come with early light.

Topics: Grief, Dark, Night

Difficulty is the nurse of greatness.

Topics: Greatness, Nurse, Difficulty

The right to discuss freely and openly, by speech, by the pen, by the press, all political questions, and to examine the animadvert upon all political institutions is a right so clear and certain, so interwoven with our other liberties, so necessary, in fact, to their existence, that without it we must fall into despotism and anarchy.

source: - "The Death of Lovejoy" by William C. Bryant (November 18, 1837), as quoted in William Cullen Bryant II "Power For Sanity: Selected Editorials of William Cullen Bryant, 1829-61" (p. 78), 1994.

Topics: Fall, Political, Liberty, Political Institutions

Truth crushed to the earth will rise again!

source: - Source: www.politico.com

Topics: Earth, Crushed

But Winter has yet brighter scenes-he boasts Splendors beyond what gorgeous Summer knows; Or Autumn with his many fruits, and woods All flushed with many hues.

Topics: Summer, Winter, Autumn

Is not thy home among the flowers?

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “The West Wind”

Topics: Flower, Home, Wind

The press, important as is its office, is but the servant of the human intellect, and its ministry is for good or for evil, according to the character of those who direct it. The press is a mill which grinds all that is put into its hopper. Fill the hopper with poisoned grain, and it will grind it to meal, but there is death in the bread.

Topics: Character, Evil, Office

All things that are on earth shall wholly pass away, Except the love of God, which shall live and last for aye.

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “The Love Of God”

Topics: God, Passing Away, Earth

And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief.

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “The Death Of The Flowers”

Topics: Sympathy, Grief, Should Have, Mourning A Loss, Mourning Loss

Pain dies quickly, and lets her weary prisoners go; the fiercest agonies have shortest reign.

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “Mutation”

Topics: Pain, Agony, Reign

Pleasantly, between the pelting showers, the sunshine gushes down.

source: - "Thirty poems". Book by William C. Bryant, poem "The Cloud on the Way", line 18, 1864.

Topics: Sunshine, Sun, Showers

The groves were God's first temples.

source: - William Cullen Bryant, Thomas G. Voss (1975). “The Letters of William Cullen Bryant: 1865-1871”, p.49, Fordham Univ Press

Topics: Nature, Tree, Firsts, Inspirational Tree, Arbor Day

All great poets have been men of great knowledge.

Topics: Men, Poet, Great Knowledge, Great Poet

Tender pauses speak The overflow of gladness, When words are all too weak.

Topics: Speak, Weak, Overflow, Gladness

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.

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “Summer Wind”

Topics: Summer, Morning, Flower, Scarce, Canopy

The February sunshine steeps your boughs and tints the buds and swells the leaves within.

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “Among The Trees”

Topics: Sunshine, Bud, February

Fairest of all that earth beholds, the hues That live among the clouds, and flush the air, Lingering, and deepening at the hour of dews.

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “A Walk At Sunset”

Topics: Clouds, Air, Dew

Adversity is the nurse of greatness which roughly rocks her patients back to health.

Topics: Adversity, Greatness, Rocks

Thou who wouldst see the lovely and the wild Mingled in harmony on Nature's face, Ascend our rocky mountains. Let thy foot Fail not with weariness, for on their tops The beauty and the majesty of earth, Spread wide beneath, shall make thee to forget The steep and toilsome way.

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “Monument Mountain”

Topics: Feet, Lovely, Mountain, Rocky Mountain

The windflower 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 sunflower by the brook, in autumn beauty stood, Till fell the first from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on men, And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland glade and glen.

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “The Death Of The Flowers”

Topics: Summer, Fall, Autumn, Asters

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.

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “March”

Topics: Clouds, Wind, Sky, Snowy

A herd of prairie-wolves will enter a field of melons and quarrel about the division of the spoils as fiercely and noisily as so many politicians.

Topics: Division, Fields, Politician, Melons

Follow thou thy choice.

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “The Alcayde Of Molina”

Topics: Choices

But 'neath yon crimson tree Lover to listening maid might breathe his flame, Nor mark, within its roseate canopy, Her blush of maiden shame.

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “Autumn Woods”

Topics: Flames, Tree, Listening, Canopy

The little wind-flower, whose just opened eye Is blue as the spring heaven it gazes at.

source: - "A Winter Piece". Poem by William C. Bryant, 1821.

Topics: Spring, Eye, Blue

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?

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “The Ages”

Topics: Strength, Freedom, Race, Swiftness, Fetters

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?

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “A Forest Hymn”

Topics: Hands, Years, World

The mighty Rain Holds the vast empire of the sky alone.

Topics: Rain, Sky, Empires

Genius, with all its pride in its own strength, is but a dependent quality, and cannot put forth its whole powers nor claim all its honors without an amount of aid from the talents and labors of others which it is difficult to calculate.

Topics: Pride, Honor, Quality

On my cornice linger the ripe black grapes ungathered; Children fill the groves with the echoes of their glee, Gathering tawny chestnuts, and shouting when beside them Drops the heavy fruit of the tall black-walnut tree.

Topics: Children, Echoes, Tree, Walnuts, Walnut Trees

When April winds Grew soft, the maple burst into a flush Of scarlet flowers. The tulip tree, high up, Opened in airs of June her multitude Of golden chalices to humming-birds And silken-wing'd insects of the sky.

source: - "The Fountain". Poem by William C. Bryant, 1839.

Topics: Flower, June, Air, Maple, Chalice

Much has seen said of the wisdom of old age. Old age is wise, I grant, for itself, but not wise for the community. It is wise in declining new enterprises, for it has not the power nor the time to execute them; wise in shrinking from difficulty, for it has not the strength to overcome it; wise in avoiding danger, for it lacks the faculty of ready and swift action, by which dangers are parried and converted into advantages. But this is not wisdom for mankind at large, by whom new enterprises must be undertaken, dangers met, and difficulties surmounted.

Topics: Wise, Community, Age

And kind the voice and glad the eyes That welcome my return at night.

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “The Hunter Of The Prairies”

Topics: Eye, Night, Voice

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

source: - "Song: Dost Thou Idly Ask To Hear". Poem by William C. Bryant, 1832.

Topics: Heart, Men, Maidens

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

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “To The Fringed Gentian”

Topics: Heart, Blossoming, Hours, Near Death

Or, bide thou where the poppy blows With windflowers fail and fair.

Topics: Blow, Poppies, Failing

Oh, river! darkling river! what a voice Is that thou utterest while all else is still-- The ancient voice that, centuries ago, Sounded between thy hills, while Rome was yet A weedy solitude by Tiber's stream!

Topics: Rome, Voice, Rivers

Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste.

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “Thanatopsis”

Topics: Ocean, Waste, Melancholy, Decoration, Pensive

The breath of springtime at this twilight hour Comes through the gathering glooms, And bears the stolen sweets of many a flower Into my silent rooms.

Topics: Sweet, Spring, Flower

Truth crushed to earth shall rise again,- The eternal years of God are hers; But Error, wounded, writhes with pain, And dies among his worshippers.

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “The Battle-Field”

Topics: Truth, Pain, Errors

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

Topics: Sea, Conflict, Remembered, Dreary

Beautiful isles! beneath the sunset skies tall, silver-shafted palm-trees rise, between full orange-trees that shade the living colonade.

Topics: Beautiful, Sunset, Orange Trees, Palm Trees, Isle

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

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “Rizpah”

Topics: Wind, Wings, Long

There is no glory in star or blossom till looked upon by a loving eye; There is no fragrance in April breezes till breathed with joy as they wander by.

Topics: Stars, Eye, Joy, Loving Eyes

Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again.

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “The Battle-Field”

Topics: Wisdom, Truth, Honesty, Kings Speech

The gentle race of flowers Are lying in their lowly beds.

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “The Death Of The Flowers”

Topics: Lying, Flower, Race

[Thanatopsis] was written in 1817, when Bryant was 23. Had he died then, the world would have thought it had lost a great poet. But he lived on.

Topics: World, Poet, Lost

Do not the bright June roses blow To meet thy kiss at morning hours?

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “The West Wind”

Topics: Morning, Kissing, Blow

Father, thy hand Hath reared these venerable columns, thou Didst weave this verdant roof. Thou didst look down Upon the naked earth, and, forthwith, rose All these fair ranks of trees. They, in thy sun, Budded, and shook their green leaves in thy breeze, And shot towards heaven.

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “A Forest Hymn”

Topics: Father, Hands, Rose, Green Leaves

And the blue gentian-flower, that, in the breeze, Nods lonely, of her beauteous race the last.

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “November”

Topics: Lonely, Flower, Race

A sculptor wields The chisel, and the stricken marble grows To beauty.

Topics: Sculpture, Grows, Marble, Sculptors, Chisels

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 flowers Comes 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.

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “Spring In Town”

Topics: Country, Spring, Flower, Sunny Day, Foliage

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.

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “The Strange Lady”

Topics: Summer, Sky, June, Clear Skies

The hushed winds their Sabbath keep.

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “A Summer Ramble”

Topics: Wind, Sabbath

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

Topics: Sweet, Spring, Years

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.

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “Autumn Woods”

Topics: Summer, Fall, Autumn, Tresses

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.

Topics: Flower, Rocks, Land, Desolation, Wormwood

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

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “Inscription For The Entrance To A Wood”

Topics: Guilt, Misery, Pale

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.

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “The Constellations”

Topics: Stars, Twilight, Warrior, Orion

Poetry is the eloquence of verse.

Topics: Poetry, Poetry Is, Eloquence

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!

Topics: Courage, Blood, Land

A melancholy sound is in the air, A deep sigh in the distance, a shrill wail Around my dwelling. 'Tis the Wind of night.

Topics: Distance, Night, Air

The linden, in the fervors of July, Hums with a louder concert. When the wind Sweeps the broad forest in its summer prime, As when some master-hand exulting sweeps The keys of some great organ, ye give forth The music of the woodland depths, a hymn Of gladness and of thanks.

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “Among The Trees”

Topics: Summer, Keys, July, Woodland, Fervor

Error's monstrous shapes from earth are driven They fade, they fly--but truth survives the flight.

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “The Ages”

Topics: Errors, Earth, Shapes, Monstrous

He [William Henry Harrison] did not live long enough to prove his incapacity for the office of President.

Topics: Long, Office, President

Ye winds ye unseen currents of the air, Softly ye played a few brief hours ago; Ye bore the murmuring bee; ye tossed the air O'er maiden cheeks, that took a fresher glow; Ye rolled the round white cloud through depths of blue; Ye shook from shaded flowers the lingering dew; Before you the catalpa's blossoms flew, Light blossoms, dropping on the grass like snow.

Topics: Flower, Clouds, Light, White Clouds, Murmuring

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.

Topics: Beautiful, Art, Perfect, Perfect Things

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

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “The Death Of The Flowers”

Topics: Sister, Flower, Light

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

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “The Yellow Violet”

Topics: Regret, Pride, Way

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 by 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.

source: - "Thanatopsis". Poem by William C. Bryant, first published in "North American Review", September 1817.

Topics: Dream, Lying, Moving, Caravans, Quarry

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.

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “A Winter Piece”

Topics: Rain, Light, Ice

Christ taught an astonishing thing about physical death: not merely that it is an experience robbed of its terror but that as an experience it does not exist at all. To "sleep in Christ," like one that wraps the drapery of his couch about him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

Topics: Dream, Lying, Sleep, Christ Like, Pleasant Dreams

And at my silent window-sill The jessamine peeps in.

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “The Hunter's Serenade”

Topics: Window, Silent

Heed not the night; A summer lodge amid the wild is mine, 'Tis shadowed by the tulip-tree, 'Tis mantled by the vine.

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “The Strange Lady”

Topics: Summer, Night, June

A stable, changeless state, 'twere cause indeed to weep.

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “Mutation”

Topics: Causes, States, Stable

Hark to that shrill, sudden shout, The cry of an applauding multitude, Swayed by some loud-voiced orator who wields The living mass as if he were its soul!

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “The Flood Of Years”

Topics: Soul, Oratory, Cry, Orators

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.

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “March”

Topics: Art, Spring, Wind, Bleak, Stormy

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.

Topics: War, Eye, Men

Lay down the axe; fling by the spade; Leave in its track the toiling plough; The rifle and the bayonet-blade For arms like yours were fitter now; And let the hands that ply the pen Quit the light task, and learn to wield The horseman's crooked brand, and rein The charger on the battle-field.

Topics: War, Light, Hands, Plies, Horsemen

A silence, the brief Sabbath of an hour, Reigns o'er the fields; the laborer sits within His dwelling; he has left his steers awhile, Unyoked, to bite the herbage, and his dog Sleeps stretched beside the door-stone in the shade. Now the gray marmot, with uplifted paws, No more sits listening by his den, but steals Abroad, in safety, to the clover-field, And crops its juicy-blossoms.

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “Noon”

Topics: Dog, Sleep, Doors

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.

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “Thanatopsis”

Topics: Ocean, Men, Green, Decoration, Pensive

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

source: - William Cullen Bryant, “The Serenade”

Topics: Ivy, Tree, Mingling, Spray, Rugged