The Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant

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D. Appleton, 1903 - Poets, American - 418 pages

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Page 20 - 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.
Page 26 - midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way...
Page lxxx - 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.
Page 92 - Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood ? Alas ! they all are in their graves ; the gentle race of flowers Are lying in their lowly beds with the fair and good of ours. The rain is falling where they lie ; but the cold November rain Calls not from out the gloomy Dearth the lovely ones again.
Page lxxxi - 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.
Page 81 - Written on thy works I read The lesson of thy own eternity. Lo! all grow old and die; but see again, How on the faltering footsteps of decay Youth presses, — ever gay and beautiful youth In all its beautiful forms.
Page xxxiii - 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.
Page 81 - God ! when thou Dost scare the world with tempests, set on fire The heavens with falling thunderbolts, or fill, With all the waters of the firmament, The swift dark whirlwind that uproots the woods And drowns the villages ; when, at thy call, Uprises the great deep and throws himself Upon the continent, and overwhelms Its...
Page lxxxi - So shalt thou rest, and what if thou withdraw In silence from 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 favorite phantom ; yet all these shall leave Their mirth and their employments, and shall come And make their bed with thee.
Page lxxx - 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.

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