Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant Part 17

But I shall think it fairer When thou art come to bless, With thy sweet smile and silver voice, Its silent loveliness.

For thee the wild-grape glistens On sunny knoll and tree, The slim papaya ripens Its yellow fruit for thee.

For thee the duck, on gla.s.sy stream, The prairie-fowl shall die; My rifle for thy feast shall bring The wild-swan from the sky.

The forest's leaping panther, Fierce, beautiful, and fleet, Shall yield his spotted hide to be A carpet for thy feet.

I know, for thou hast told me, Thy maiden love of flowers; Ah, those that deck thy gardens Are pale compared with ours.

When our wide woods and mighty lawns Bloom to the April skies, The earth has no more gorgeous sight To show to human eyes.

In meadows red with blossoms, All summer long, the bee Murmurs, and loads his yellow thighs, For thee, my love, and me.

Or wouldst thou gaze at tokens Of ages long ago-- Our old oaks stream with mosses, And sprout with mistletoe; And mighty vines, like serpents, climb The giant sycamore; And trunks, o'erthrown for centuries, c.u.mber the forest floor; And in the great savanna, The solitary mound, Built by the elder world, o'erlooks The loneliness around.

Come, thou hast not forgotten Thy pledge and promise quite, With many blushes murmured, Beneath the evening light.

Come, the young violets crowd my door, Thy earliest look to win, And at my silent window-sill The jessamine peeps in.

All day the red-bird warbles Upon the mulberry near, And the night-sparrow trills her song All night, with none to hear.

THE GREEK BOY.

Gone are the glorious Greeks of old, Glorious in mien and mind; Their bones are mingled with the mould, Their dust is on the wind; The forms they hewed from living stone Survive the waste of years, alone, And, scattered with their ashes, show What greatness perished long ago.

Yet fresh the myrtles there; the springs Gush brightly as of yore; Flowers blossom from the dust of kings, As many an age before.

There Nature moulds as n.o.bly now, As e'er of old, the human brow; And copies still the martial form That braved Plataea's battle-storm.

Boy! thy first looks were taught to seek Their heaven in h.e.l.las' skies; Her airs have tinged thy dusky cheek, Her suns.h.i.+ne lit thine eyes; Thine ears have drunk the woodland strains Heard by old poets, and thy veins Swell with the blood of demiG.o.ds, That slumber in thy country's sods.

Now is thy nation free, though late; Thy elder brethren broke-- Broke, ere thy spirit felt its weight-- The intolerable yoke.

And Greece, decayed, dethroned, doth see Her youth renewed in such as thee: A shoot of that old vine that made The nations silent in its shade.

THE PAST.

Thou unrelenting Past!

Strong are the barriers round thy dark domain, And fetters, sure and fast, Hold all that enter thy unbreathing reign.

Far in thy realm withdrawn, Old empires sit in sullenness and gloom, And glorious ages gone Lie deep within the shadow of thy womb.

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.

Thou hast my better years; Thou hast my earlier friends, the good, the kind, Yielded to thee with tears-- The venerable form, the exalted mind.

My spirit yearns to bring The lost ones back--yearns with desire intense, And struggles hard to wring Thy bolts apart, and pluck thy captives thence.

In vain; thy gates deny All pa.s.sage save to those who hence depart; Nor to the streaming eye Thou giv'st them back--nor to the broken heart.

In thy abysses hide Beauty and excellence unknown; to thee Earth's wonder and her pride Are gathered, as the waters to the sea;

Labors of good to man, Unpublished charity, unbroken faith, Love, that midst grief began, And grew with years, and faltered not in death.

Full many a mighty name Lurks in thy depths, unuttered, unrevered; With thee are silent fame, Forgotten arts, and wisdom disappeared.

Thine for a s.p.a.ce are they-- Yet shalt thou yield thy treasures up at last: Thy gates shall yet give way, Thy bolts shall fall, inexorable Past!

All that of good and fair Has gone into thy womb from earliest time, Shall then come forth to wear The glory and the beauty of its prime.

They have not perished--no!

Kind words, remembered voices once so sweet, Smiles, radiant long ago, And features, the great soul's apparent seat.

All shall come back; each tie Of pure affection shall be knit again; Alone shall Evil die, And Sorrow dwell a prisoner in thy reign.

And then shall I behold Him, by whose kind paternal side I sprung, And her, who, still and cold, Fills the next grave--the beautiful and young.

"UPON THE MOUNTAIN'S DISTANT HEAD."

Upon the mountain's distant head, With trackless snows forever white, Where all is still, and cold, and dead, Late s.h.i.+nes the day's departing light.

But far below those icy rocks, The vales, in summer bloom arrayed, Woods full of birds, and fields of flocks, Are dim with mist and dark with shade.

'Tis thus, from warm and kindly hearts, And eyes where generous meanings burn, Earliest the light of life departs, But lingers with the cold and stern.

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; Thou hast been out upon the deep at play, Riding all day the wild blue waves till now, Roughening their crests, and scattering high their spray, And swelling the white sail. I welcome thee To the scorched land, thou wanderer of the sea!

Nor I alone; a thousand bosoms round Inhale thee in the fulness of delight; And languid forms rise up, and pulses bound Livelier, at coming of the wind of night; And, languis.h.i.+ng to hear thy grateful sound, Lies the vast inland stretched beyond the sight.

Go forth into the gathering shade; go forth, G.o.d's blessing breathed upon the fainting earth!

Go, rock the little wood-bird in his nest, Curl the still waters, bright with stars, and rouse The wide old wood from his majestic rest, Summoning from the innumerable boughs The strange, deep harmonies that haunt his breast: Pleasant shall be thy way where meekly bows The shutting flower, and darkling waters pa.s.s, And where the o'ershadowing branches sweep the gra.s.s.

The faint old man shall lean his silver head To feel thee; thou shalt kiss the child asleep, And dry the moistened curls that overspread His temples, while his breathing grows more deep; And they who stand about the sick man's bed, Shall joy to listen to thy distant sweep, And softly part his curtains to allow Thy visit, grateful to his burning brow.

Go--but the circle of eternal change, Which is the life of Nature, shall restore, With sounds and scents from all thy mighty range, Thee to thy birthplace of the deep once more; Sweet odors in the sea-air, sweet and strange, Shall tell the home-sick mariner of the sh.o.r.e; And, listening to thy murmur, he shall deem He hears the rustling leaf and running stream.