Poems by William Cullen Bryant

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American Literature – Children Books – American Poetry – William Cullen Bryant – Poems from William Cullen Bryant

In English

A Dream
I had a dream—a strange, wild dream—
Said a dear voice at early light;
And even yet its shadows seem

A Forest Hymn
The groves were God’s first temples. Ere man learned
To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave,
And spread the roof above them,—ere he framed … Continue Reading …

A Hymn of the Sea
The sea is mighty, but a mightier sways
His restless billows. Thou, whose hands have scooped
His boundless gulfs and built his shore, thy breath, … Continue Reading …

A Meditation on Rhode Island Coal
Decolor, obscuris, vilis, non ille repexam
Cesariem regum, non candida virginis ornat
Colla, nec insigni splendet per cingula morsu. … Continue Reading …

A Presentiment
“Oh father, let us hence—for hark,
A fearful murmur shakes the air.
The clouds are coming swift and dark:— … Continue Reading …

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, … Continue Reading …

A Song of Pitcairn’s Island
Come take our boy, and we will go
Before our cabin door;
The winds shall bring us, as they blow, … Continue Reading …

A Summer Ramble
The quiet August noon has come,
A slumberous silence fills the sky,
The fields are still, the woods are dumb, … Continue Reading …

A Walk at Sunset
When insect wings are glistening in the beam
Of the low sun, and mountain-tops are bright,
Oh, let me, by the crystal valley-stream, … Continue Reading …

A Winter Piece
The time has been that these wild solitudes,
Yet beautiful as wild, were trod by me
Oftener than now; and when the ills of life … Continue Reading …

After a Tempest
The day had been a day of wind and storm;—
The wind was laid, the storm was overpast,—
And stooping from the zenith bright and warm … Continue Reading …

An Evening Revery
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 … Continue Reading …

An Indian at the Burial-place of his Fathers
It is the spot I came to seek,—
My fathers’ ancient burial-place
Ere from these vales, ashamed and weak, … Continue Reading …

An Indian Story
“I know where the timid fawn abides
In the depths of the shaded dell,
Where the leaves are broad and the thicket hides, … Continue Reading …

Autumn Woods
Ere, in the northern gale,
The summer tresses of the trees are gone,
The woods of Autumn, all around our vale, … Continue Reading …

Blessed are they that Mourn
Oh, deem not they are blest alone
Whose lives a peaceful tenor keep;
The Power who pities man, has shown … Continue Reading …

Catterskill Falls
Midst greens and shades the Catterskill leaps,
From cliffs where the wood-flower clings;
All summer he moistens his verdant steeps … Continue Reading …

Earth
A midnight black with clouds is in the sky;
I seem to feel, upon my limbs, the weight
Of its vast brooding shadow. All in vain … Continue Reading …

“Earth’s children cleave to earth“
Earth’s children cleave to Earth—her frail
Decaying children dread decay.
Yon wreath of mist that leaves the vale, … Continue Reading …

Green River
When breezes are soft and skies are fair,
I steal an hour from study and care,
And hie me away to the woodland scene, … Continue Reading …

Hymn of the City
Not in the solitude
Alone may man commune with Heaven, or see
Only in savage wood … Continue Reading …

Hymn of the Waldenses
Hear, Father, hear thy faint afflicted flock
Cry to thee, from the desert and the rock;
While those, who seek to slay thy children, hold … Continue Reading …

Hymn to Death
Oh! could I hope the wise and pure in heart
Might hear my song without a frown, nor deem
My voice unworthy of the theme it tries,— … Continue Reading …

Hymn to the North Star
        The sad and solemn night
    Hath yet her multitude of cheerful fires;
        The glorious host of light … Continue Reading …

“I broke the spell that held me long”
I broke the spell that held me long,
The dear, dear witchery of song.
I said, the poet’s idle lore … Continue Reading …

“I cannot forget with what fervid devotion”
I cannot forget with what fervid devotion
I worshipped the vision of verse and of fame.
Each gaze at the glories of earth, sky, and ocean, … Continue Reading …

“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, … Continue Reading …

Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood
Stranger, if thou hast learned a truth which needs
No school of long experience, that the world
Is full of guilt and misery, and hast seen … Continue Reading …

June
I gazed upon the glorious sky
And the green mountains round,
And thought that when I came to lie … Continue Reading …

Life
Oh Life! I breathe thee in the breeze,
I feel thee bounding in my veins,
I see thee in these stretching trees, … Continue Reading …

Lines in Memory of William Leggett
The earth may ring, from shore to shore,
With echoes of a glorious name,
But he, whose loss our tears deplore, … Continue Reading …

Lines on Revisiting the Country
I stand upon my native hills again,
Broad, round, and green, that in the summer sky
With garniture of waving grass and grain, … Continue Reading …

March
The stormy March is come at last,
With wind, and cloud, and changing skies,
I hear the rushing of the blast, … Continue Reading …

Midsummer
A power is on the earth and in the air,
From which the vital spirit shrinks afraid,
And shelters him, in nooks of deepest shade, … Continue Reading …

Monument Mountain
Thou who wouldst see the lovely and the wild
Mingled in harmony on Nature’s face,
Ascend our rocky mountains. Let thy foot … Continue Reading …

Mutation
They talk of short-lived pleasure—be it so—
Pain dies as quickly: stern, hard-featured pain
Expires, and lets her weary prisoner go. … Continue Reading …

No Man knoweth his Sepulchre
When he, who, from the scourge of wrong,
Aroused the Hebrew tribes to fly,
Saw the fair region, promised long, … Continue Reading …

Noon. (From an unfinished Poem)
‘Tis noon. At noon the Hebrew bowed the knee
And worshipped, while the husbandmen withdrew
From the scorched field, and the wayfaring man … Continue Reading …

November
Yet one smile more, departing, distant sun!
One mellow smile through the soft vapoury air,
Ere, o’er the frozen earth, the loud winds run, … Continue Reading …

October
Ay, thou art welcome, heaven’s delicious breath,
When woods begin to wear the crimson leaf,
And suns grow meek, and the meek suns grow brief, … Continue Reading …

Ode for an Agricultural Celebration
Far back in the ages,
The plough with wreaths was crowned;
The hands of kings and sages … Continue Reading …

“Oh fairest of the rural maids”
Oh fairest of the rural maids!
Thy birth was in the forest shades;
Green boughs, and glimpses of the sky, … Continue Reading …

Rizpah
Hear what the desolate Rizpah said,
As on Gibeah’s rocks she watched the dead.
The sons of Michal before her lay, … Continue Reading …

Romero
When freedom, from the land of Spain,
By Spain’s degenerate sons was driven,
Who gave their willing limbs again … Continue Reading …

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, … Continue Reading …

Seventy-Six
What heroes from the woodland sprung,
When, through the fresh awakened land,
The thrilling cry of freedom rung, … Continue Reading …

Song—”Dost thou idly ask to hear”
Dost thou idly ask to hear
At what gentle seasons
Nymphs relent, when lovers near … Continue Reading …

Song of Marion’s Men
Our band is few, but true and tried,
Our leader frank and bold;
The British soldier trembles … Continue Reading …

Song of the Greek Amazon
I buckle to my slender side
The pistol and the scimitar,
And in my maiden flower and pride … Continue Reading …

Song of the Stars
When the radiant morn of creation broke,
And the world in the smile of God awoke,
And the empty realms of darkness and death … Continue Reading …

Song.—”Soon as the glazed and gleaming snow”
Soon as the glazed and gleaming snow
Reflects the day-dawn cold and clear,
The hunter of the west must go … Continue Reading …

Sonnet.—To—
Ay, thou art for the grave; thy glances shine
Too brightly to shine long; another Spring
Shall deck her for men’s eyes,—but not for thine—… Continue Reading …

Spring in Town
The country ever has a lagging Spring,
Waiting for May to call its violets forth,
And June its roses—showers and sunshine bring, … Continue Reading …

Summer Wind
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 … Continue Reading …

Thanatopsis
To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours … Continue Reading …

The African Chief
Chained in the market-place he stood,
A man of giant frame,
Amid the gathering multitude … Continue Reading …

The Ages
When to the common rest that crowns our days,
Called in the noon of life, the good man goes,
Or full of years, and ripe in wisdom, lays … Continue Reading …

The Antiquity of Freedom
Here are old trees, tall oaks and gnarled pines,
That stream with gray-green mosses; here the ground
Was never trenched by spade, and flowers spring up … Continue Reading …

The Arctic Lover
Gone is the long, long winter night;
Look, my beloved one!
How glorious, through his depths of light, … Continue Reading …

The Battlefield
Once this soft turf, this rivulet’s sands,
Were trampled by a hurrying crowd,
And fiery hearts and armed hands … Continue Reading …

The Burial-place. A Fragment
Erewhile, on England’s pleasant shores, our sires
Left not their churchyards unadorned with shades
Or blossoms; and indulgent to the strong … Continue Reading …

The Child’s Funeral
Fair is thy site, Sorrento, green thy shore,
Black crags behind thee pierce the clear blue skies;
The sea, whose borderers ruled the world of yore, … Continue Reading …

The Conjunction of Jupiter and Venus
I would not always reason. The straight path
Wearies us with its never-varying lines,
And we grow melancholy. I would make … Continue Reading …

The Crowded Street
Let me move slowly through the street,
Filled with an ever-shifting train,
Amid the sound of steps that beat … Continue Reading …

The Damsel of Peru
Where olive leaves were twinkling in every wind that blew,
There sat beneath the pleasant shade a damsel of Peru.
Betwixt the slender boughs, as they opened to the air, … Continue Reading …

The Death of the Flowers
The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,
Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear.
Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead; … Continue Reading …

The Death of Schiller
‘Tis said, when Schiller’s death drew nigh,
The wish possessed his mighty mind,
To wander forth wherever lie … Continue Reading …

The Disinterred Warrior
Gather him to his grave again,
And solemnly and softly lay,
Beneath the verdure of the plain, … Continue Reading …

The Evening Wind
Spirit that breathest through my lattice, thou
That cool’st the twilight of the sultry day,
Gratefully flows thy freshness round my brow: … Continue Reading …

The Fountain
Fountain, that springest on this grassy slope,
Thy quick cool murmur mingles pleasantly,
With the cool sound of breezes in the beach, … Continue Reading …

The Future Life
How shall I know thee in the sphere which keeps
The disembodied spirits of the dead,
Wheii all of thee that time could wither sleep … Continue Reading …

The Gladness of Nature
Is this a time to be cloudy and sad,
When our mother Nature laughs around;
When even the deep blue heavens look glad, … Continue Reading …

The Greek Boy
Gone are the glorious Greeks of old,
Glorious in mien and mind;
Their bones are mingled with the mould, … Continue Reading …

The Greek Partisan
Our free flag is dancing
In the free mountain air,
And burnished arms are glancing, … Continue Reading …

The Green Mountain Boys
Here we halt our march, and pitch our tent
On the rugged forest ground,
And light our fire with the branches rent … Continue Reading …

The Hunter of the Prairies
Ay, this is freedom!—these pure skies
Were never stained with village smoke:
The fragrant wind, that through them flies, … Continue Reading …

The Hunter’s Serenade
Thy bower is finished, fairest!
Fit bower for hunter’s bride—
Where old woods overshadow … Continue Reading …

The Hunter’s Vision
Upon a rock that, high and sheer,
Rose from the mountain’s breast,
A weary hunter of the deer … Continue Reading …

The Hurricane
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, … Continue Reading …

The Indian Girl’s Lament
An Indian girl was sitting where
Her lover, slain in battle, slept;
Her maiden veil, her own black hair, … Continue Reading …

The Journey of Life
Beneath the waning moon I walk at night,
And muse on human life—for all around
Are dim uncertain shapes that cheat the sight, … Continue Reading …

The Knight’s Epitaph
This is the church which Pisa, great and free,
Reared to St. Catharine. How the time-stained walls,
That earthquakes shook not from their poise, appear … Continue Reading …

The Lapse of Time
Lament who will, in fruitless tears,
The speed with which our moments fly;
I sigh not over vanished years, … Continue Reading …

The Living Lost
Matron! the children of whose love,
Each to his grave, in youth hath passed,
And now the mould is heaped above … Continue Reading …

The Maiden’s Sorrow
Seven long years has the desert rain
Dropped on the clods that hide thy face;
Seven long years of sorrow and pain … Continue Reading …

The Massacre at Scio
Weep not for Scio’s children slain;
Their blood, by Turkish falchions shed,
Sends not its cry to Heaven in vain … Continue Reading …

The Murdered Traveller
When spring, to woods and wastes around,
Brought bloom and joy again,
The murdered traveller’s bones were found, … Continue Reading …

The New Moon
When, as the garish day is done,
Heaven burns with the descended sun,
‘Tis passing sweet to mark, … Continue Reading …

The Old Man’s Counsel
Among our hills and valleys, I have known
Wise and grave men, who, while their diligent hands
Tended or gathered in the fruits of earth, … Continue Reading …

The Old Man’s Funeral
I saw an aged man upon his bier,
His hair was thin and white, and on his brow
A record of the cares of many a year;— … Continue Reading …

The Painted Cup
The fresh savannas of the Sangamon
Here rise in gentle swells, and the long grass
Is mixed with rustling hazels. Scarlet tufts … Continue Reading …

The Past
Thou unrelenting Past!
Strong are the barriers round thy dark domain,
And fetters, sure and fast, … Continue Reading …

The Prairies
These are the gardens of the Desert, these
The unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful,
For which the speech of England has no name— … Continue Reading …

The Return of Youth
My friend, thou sorrowest for thy golden prime,
For thy fair youthful years too swift of flight;
Thou musest, with wet eyes, upon the time … Continue Reading …

The Rivulet
This little rill, that from the springs
Of yonder grove its current brings,
Plays on the slope a while, and then … Continue Reading …

The Skies
Ay! gloriously thou standest there,
Beautiful, boundles firmament!
That, swelling wide o’er earth and air, … Continue Reading …

The Strange Lady
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; … Continue Reading …

The Stream of Life
Oh silvery streamlet of the fields,
That flowest full and free!
For thee the rains of spring return, … Continue Reading …

The Twenty-second of December
Wild was the day; the wintry sea
Moaned sadly on New-England’s strand,
When first the thoughtful and the free, … Continue Reading …

The Two Graves
‘Tis a bleak wild hill,—but green and bright
In the summer warmth and the mid-day light;
There’s the hum of the bee and the chirp of the wren, … Continue Reading …

The Waning Moon
I’ve watched too late; the morn is near;
One look at God’s broad silent sky!
Oh, hopes and wishes vainly dear, … Continue Reading …

The West Wind
Beneath the forest’s skirts I rest,
Whose branching pines rise dark and high,
And hear the breezes of the West … Continue Reading …

The White-footed Deer
It was a hundred years ago,
When, by the woodland ways,
The traveller saw the wild deer drink, … Continue Reading …

The Winds
Ye winds, ye unseen currents of the air,
Softly ye played a few brief hours ago;
Ye bore the murmuring bee; ye tossed the hair … Continue Reading …

The Yellow Violet
When beechen buds begin to swell,
And woods the blue-bird’s warble know,
The yellow violet’s modest bell … Continue Reading …

To a Cloud
Beautiful cloud! with folds so soft and fair,
Swimming in the pure quiet air!
Thy fleeces bathed in sunlight, while below … Continue Reading …

To a Musquito
Fair insect! that, with threadlike legs spread out,
And blood-extracting bill and filmy wing,
Does murmur, as thou slowly sail’st about, … Continue Reading …

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 … Continue Reading …

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, … Continue Reading …

To the Apennines
Your peaks are beautiful, ye Apennines!
In the soft light of these serenest skies;
From the broad highland region, black with pines, … Continue Reading …

To the fringed Gentian
Thou blossom bright with autumn dew,
And coloured with the heaven’s own blue,
That openest when the quiet light … Continue Reading …

To the River Arve
Not from the sands or cloven rocks,
Thou rapid Arve! thy waters flow;
Nor earth, within her bosom, locks … Continue Reading …

“Upon the mountain’s distant head“
Upon the mountain’s distant head,
With trackless snows for ever white,
Where all is still, and cold, and dead, … Continue Reading …

“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, … Continue Reading …

William Tell
Chains may subdue the feeble spirit, but thee,
Tell, of the iron heart! they could not tame!
For thou wert of the mountains; they proclaim … Continue Reading …

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American Literature – Children Books – American Poetry – William Cullen Bryant – Poems from William Cullen Bryant