William Cullen Bryant

"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 thin"

"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"

"The quiet August noon has come,     A slumberous silence fills the sky,     The fields are still, the woods are dumb,     In glassy sleep the w"

"Oh Life! I breathe thee in the breeze,     I feel thee bounding in my veins,     I see thee in these stretching trees,     These flowers, this"

"Not in the solitude     Alone may man commune with Heaven, or see     Only in savage wood     And sunny vale, the present Deity;     Or only h"

"Ay, this is freedom! these pure skies     Were never stained with village smoke:     The fragrant wind, that through them flies,     Is breathe"

"The fresh savannas of the Sangamon     Here rise in gentle swells, and the long grass     Is mixed with rustling hazels. Scarlet tufts     Are"

"Ay! gloriously thou standest there,     Beautiful, boundles firmament!     That, swelling wide o'er earth and air,     And round the horizon be"

"When spring, to woods and wastes around,     Brought bloom and joy again,     The murdered traveller's bones were found,     Far down a narrow"

"These are the gardens of the Desert, these     The unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful,     For which the speech of England has no name,"

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

"Chained in the market-place he stood,     A man of giant frame,     Amid the gathering multitude     That shrunk to hear his name,     All ste"

"The stormy March is come at last,     With wind, and cloud, and changing skies,     I hear the rushing of the blast,     That through the snowy"

"I sat beside the glowing grate, fresh heaped     With Newport coal, and as the flame grew bright     The many-coloured flame, and played and lea"

"To him who in the love of Nature holds     Communion with her visible forms, she speaks     A various language; for his gayer hours     She has"

"Yet one smile more, departing, distant sun!     One mellow smile through the soft vapoury air,     Ere, o'er the frozen earth, the loud winds ru"