{"id":25279,"date":"2023-05-03T15:13:04","date_gmt":"2023-05-03T20:13:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.berkshirelinks.com\/?p=25279"},"modified":"2023-05-03T15:13:04","modified_gmt":"2023-05-03T20:13:04","slug":"william-cullen-bryant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/william-cullen-bryant\/","title":{"rendered":"William Cullen Bryant"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"William<\/a>William Cullen Bryant (November 3, 1794 \u2013 June 12, 1878) was born in a log cabin near Cummington<\/strong>, where his father built the family homestead two years later and which is open to visitors today. <\/p>\n

He was a poetry prodigy; Thanatopsis<\/a><\/em> and To a Waterfowl<\/a><\/em>, considered among the first fruits of American poetry, were composed before he was twenty. Some lines of Thanatopsis<\/em> are inscribed on the memorial to him at Bryant Park<\/strong> outside the New York Public Library<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Please consider our sponsor<\/a> when you shop for cannabis products.<\/div>\n

Gt. Barrington, MA to New York City<\/h3>\n

\"William<\/a>Following ten years of law practice in Great Barrington<\/strong>, where he wrote Monument Mountain<\/a>, the dull routine moved Bryant to answer the call of his muse and move to New York City. There, he began the first great career in American journalism, as publisher and part owner of the New York (Evening) Post<\/strong>, the paper founded by Alexander Hamilton<\/strong>. In 1860, Bryant introduced Abraham Lincoln<\/strong> at Cooper Union, thus helped launch his campaign for the presidency.<\/p>\n

Poems of William Cullen Bryant<\/h3>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

To a Waterfowl<\/strong><\/p>\n

Whither, midst falling dew,
\nWhile glow the heavens with the last steps of day
\nFar, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
\nThy solitary way?<\/p>\n

Vainly the fowler’s eye
\nMight mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong
\nAs, darkly seen against the crimson sky,
\nThy figure floats along.<\/p>\n

Seek’st thou the plashy brink
\nOf weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
\nOr where the rocking billows rise and sing
\nOn the chafed ocean side?<\/p>\n

There is a Power whose care
\nTeaches thy way along that pathless coast\u2014
\nThe desert and illimitable air\u2014
\nLone wandering, but not lost.<\/p>\n

All day thy wings have fanned,
\nAt that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere,
\nYet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
\nThough the dark night is near.<\/p>\n

And soon that toil shall end;
\nSoon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest,
\nAnd scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend,
\nSoon, o’er thy sheltered nest.<\/p>\n

Thou’rt gone, the abyss of heaven
\nHath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart
\nDeeply has sunk the lesson thou hast given,
\nAnd shall not soon depart.<\/p>\n

He who, from zone to zone,
\nGuides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
\nIn the long way that I must tread alone,
\nWill lead my steps aright.
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

Thanatopsis<\/h4>\n

To him who in the love of nature holds
\nCommunion with her visible forms, she speaks
\nA various language; for his gayer hours
\nShe has a voice of gladness, and a smile
\nAnd eloquence of beauty, and she glides
\nInto his darker musings, with a mild
\nAnd healing sympathy, that steals away
\nTheir sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts
\nOf the last bitter hour come like a blight
\nOver thy spirit, and sad images
\nOf the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
\nAnd breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
\nMake thee to shudder and grow sick at heart-
\nGo forth, under the open sky, and list
\nTo nature’s teachings, while from all around-
\nEarth and her waters, and the depths of air-
\nComes a still voice-yet a few days, and thee
\nThe all-beholding sun shall see no more
\nIn all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
\nWhere thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
\nNor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
\nThy images. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
\nThy growth, to be resolved to earth again,
\nAnd, lost each human trace, surrending up
\nThine individual being, shalt thou go
\nTo mix forever with the elements,
\nTo be a brother to the insensible rock
\nAnd to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
\nTurns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
\nShall send his roots a broad, and pierce thy mold.<\/p>\n

Yet not to thine eternal resting place
\nShalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish
\nCouch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
\nWith patriarchs of the infant world – with kings,
\nThe powerful of the earth – the wise, the good,
\nFair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
\nAll in one mighty sepulcher. The hills
\nRock-ribbed and ancient as the sun – the vales
\nStretching in pensive quietness between;
\nThe venerable woods – rivers that move
\nIn majesty, and the complaining brooks
\nThat make the meadows green; and, poured round all,<\/p>\n

Old ocean’s gray and melancholy waste –
\nAre but the solemn decorations all
\nOf the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
\nThe planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
\nAre shining on the sad abodes of death,
\nThrough the still lapse of ages. All that tread
\nThe globe are but a handful to the tribes
\nThat slumber in its bosom. Take the wings
\nOf morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness,
\nOr lose thyself in the continuous woods
\nWhere rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound,
\nSave his own dashings – yet the dead are there;
\nAnd millions in those solitudes, since first
\nThe flight of years began, have laid them down
\nIn their last sleep – the dead reign there alone.
\nSo shalt thou rest, and what if thou withdraw
\nIn silence from the living, and no friend
\nTake note of thy departure? All that breathe
\nWill share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
\nWhen thou art gone, the solemn broad of care
\nPlod on, and each one as before will chase
\nHis favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
\nTheir mirth and their employments, and shall come
\nAnd make their bed with thee. As the long train
\nOf ages glides away, the sons of men,
\nThe youth in life’s green spring, and he who goes
\nIn the full strength of years, matron and maid,
\nThe speechless babe, and the gray-headed man –
\nShall one by one be gathered to thy side,
\nBy those who in their turn shall follow them.<\/p>\n

So live, that when thy summons comes to join
\nThe innumerable caravan, which moves
\nTo that mysterious realm where each shall take
\nHis chamber in the silent halls of death,
\nThou go not, like the quarry slave at night,
\nScourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
\nBy an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
\nLike one who wraps the drapery of his couch
\nAbout him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

Monument Mountain<\/h4>\n

Thou who wouldst see the lovely and the wild
\nMingled in harmony on Nature’s face,
\nAscend our rocky mountains. Let thy foot
\nFail not with weariness, for on their tops
\nThe beauty and the majesty of earth,
\nSpread wide beneath, shall make thee to forget
\nThe steep and toilsome way. There, as thou stand’st,
\nThe haunts of men below thee, and around
\nThe mountain summits, thy expanding heart
\nShall feel a kindred with that loftier world
\nTo which thou art translated, and partake
\nThe enlargement of thy vision. Thou shalt look
\nUpon the green and rolling forest tops,
\nAnd down into the secrets of the glens,
\nAnd streams, that with their bordering thickets strive
\nTo hide their windings. Thou shalt gaze, at once,
\nHere on white villages, and tilth, and herds,
\nAnd swarming roads, and there on solitudes
\nThat only hear the torrent, and the wind,
\nAnd eagle’s shriek. There is a precipice
\nThat seems a fragment of some mighty wall,
\nBuilt by the hand that fashioned the old world,
\nTo separate its nations, and thrown down
\nWhen the flood drowned them. To the north, a path
\nConducts you up the narrow battlement.
\nSteep is the western side, shaggy and wild
\nWith mossy trees, and pinnacles of flint,
\nAnd many a hanging crag. But, to the east,
\nSheer to the vale go down the bare old cliffs,–
\nHuge pillars, that in middle heaven upbear
\nTheir weather-beaten capitals, here dark
\nWith the thick moss of centuries, and there
\nOf chalky whiteness where the thunderbolt
\nHas splintered them. It is a fearful thing
\nTo stand upon the beetling verge, and see
\nWhere storm and lightning, from that huge gray wall,
\nHave tumbled down vast blocks, and at the base
\nDashed them in fragments, and to lay thine ear
\nOver the dizzy depth, and hear the sound
\nOf winds, that struggle with the woods below,
\nCome up like ocean murmurs. But the scene
\nIs lovely round; a beautiful river there
\nWanders amid the fresh and fertile meads,
\nThe paradise he made unto himself,
\nMining the soil for ages. On each side
\nThe fields swell upward to the hills; beyond,
\nAbove the hills, in the blue distance, rise
\nThe mighty columns with which earth props heaven.<\/p>\n

There is a tale about these reverend rocks,
\nA sad tradition of unhappy love,
\nAnd sorrows borne and ended, long ago,
\nWhen over these fair vales the savage sought
\nHis game in the thick woods. There was a maid,
\nThe fairest of the Indian maids, bright-eyed,
\nWith wealth of raven tresses, a light form,
\nAnd a gay heart. About her cabin-door
\nThe wide old woods resounded with her song
\nAnd fairy laughter all the summer day.
\nShe loved her cousin; such a love was deemed,
\nBy the morality of those stern tribes,
\nIncestuous, and she struggled hard and long
\nAgainst her love, and reasoned with her heart,
\nAs simple Indian maiden might. In vain.
\nThen her eye lost its lustre, and her step
\nIts lightness, and the gray-haired men that passed
\nHer dwelling, wondered that they heard no more
\nThe accustomed song and laugh of her, whose looks
\nWere like the cheerful smile of Spring, they said,
\nUpon the Winter of their age. She went
\nTo weep where no eye saw, and was not found
\nWhen all the merry girls were met to dance,
\nAnd all the hunters of the tribe were out;
\nNor when they gathered from the rustling husk
\nThe shining ear; nor when, by the river’s side,
\nThay pulled the grape and startled the wild shades
\nWith sounds of mirth. The keen-eyed Indian dames
\nWould whisper to each other, as they saw
\nHer wasting form, and say _the girl will die_.<\/p>\n

One day into the bosom of a friend,
\nA playmate of her young and innocent years,
\nShe poured her griefs. “Thou know’st, and thou alone,”
\nShe said, “for I have told thee, all my love,
\nAnd guilt, and sorrow. I am sick of life.
\nAll night I weep in darkness, and the morn
\nGlares on me, as upon a thing accursed,
\nThat has no business on the earth. I hate
\nThe pastimes and the pleasant toils that once
\nI loved; the cheerful voices of my friends
\nHave an unnatural horror in mine ear.
\nIn dreams my mother, from the land of souls,
\nCalls me and chides me. All that look on me
\nDo seem to know my shame; I cannot bear
\nTheir eyes; I cannot from my heart root out
\nThe love that wrings it so, and I must die.”<\/p>\n

It was a summer morning, and they went
\nTo this old precipice. About the cliffs
\nLay garlands, ears of maize, and shaggy skins
\nOf wolf and bear, the offerings of the tribe
\nHere made to the Great Spirit, for they deemed,
\nLike worshippers of the elder time, that God
\nDoth walk on the high places and affect
\nThe earth-o’erlooking mountains. She had on
\nThe ornaments with which her father loved
\nTo deck the beauty of his bright-eyed girl,
\nAnd bade her wear when stranger warriors came
\nTo be his guests. Here the friends sat them down,
\nAnd sang, all day, old songs of love and death,
\nAnd decked the poor wan victim’s hair with flowers,
\nAnd prayed that safe and swift might be her way
\nTo the calm world of sunshine, where no grief
\nMakes the heart heavy and the eyelids red.
\nBeautiful lay the region of her tribe
\nBelow her–waters resting in the embrace
\nOf the wide forest, and maize-planted glades
\nOpening amid the leafy wilderness.
\nShe gazed upon it long, and at the sight
\nOf her own village peeping through the trees,
\nAnd her own dwelling, and the cabin roof
\nOf him she loved with an unlawful love,
\nAnd came to die for, a warm gush of tears
\nRan from her eyes. But when the sun grew low
\nAnd the hill shadows long, she threw herself
\nFrom the steep rock and perished. There was scooped
\nUpon the mountain’s southern slope, a grave;
\nAnd there they laid her, in the very garb
\nWith which the maiden decked herself for death,
\nWith the same withering wild flowers in her hair.
\nAnd o’er the mould that covered her, the tribe
\nBuilt up a simple monument, a cone
\nOf small loose stones. Thenceforward all who passed,
\nHunter, and dame, and virgin, laid a stone
\nIn silence on the pile. It stands there yet.
\nAnd Indians from the distant West, who come
\nTo visit where their fathers’ bones are laid,
\nYet tell the sorrowful tale, and to this day
\nThe mountain where the hapless maiden died
\nIs called the Mountain of the Monument.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

William Cullen Bryant (November 3, 1794 \u2013 June 12, 1878) was born in a log cabin near Cummington, where his father built the family homestead two years later and which is open to visitors today. He was a poetry prodigy; Thanatopsis and To a Waterfowl, considered among the first fruits of American poetry, were composed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-literature","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25279\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}