William Cullen Bryant

Here the free spirit of mankind, at length, Throws its last fetters off; and who shall place A limit to the giant's unchained strength, Or curb his swiftness in the forward race!

— William Cullen Bryant war

Oh, sun! that o'er the western mountains now Goest down in glory! ever beautiful And blessed is thy radiance, whether thou Colourest the eastern heaven and night-mist cool, Till the bright day-star vanish, or on high Climbest and streamest thy white splendours from mid-sky.

— William Cullen Bryant beautiful

The little wind-flower, whose just opened eye Is blue as the spring heaven it gazes at.

— William Cullen Bryant heaven

The groves were God's first temples.

— William Cullen Bryant god

Ah, why Should we, in the world's riper years, neglect God's ancient sanctuaries, and adore Only among the crowd and under roofs That our frail hands have raised?

— William Cullen Bryant world

They talk of short-lived pleasures—be it so— pain dies as quickly: stern, hard-featured pain Expires, and lets her weary prisoner go. The fiercest agonies have shortest reign; And after dreams of horror, comes again The welcome morning with its rays of peace.

— William Cullen Bryant dreams

Remorse is virtue's root; its fair increase Are fruits of innocence and blessedness.

— William Cullen Bryant virtue

Weep not that the world changes—did it keep A stable, changeless state, 'twere cause indeed to weep.

— William Cullen Bryant change

And the blue gentian flower, that, in the breeze, Nods lonely, of her beauteous race the last.

— William Cullen Bryant race

Loveliest of lovely things are they, On earth, that soonest pass away. The rose that lives its little hour Is prized beyond the sculptured flower.

— William Cullen Bryant love

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

— William Cullen Bryant dark

The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere.

— William Cullen Bryant sad

The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore, And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more.

— William Cullen Bryant flowers

Maidens hearts are always soft: Would that men's were truer!

— William Cullen Bryant art

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

— William Cullen Bryant beautiful

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.

— William Cullen Bryant love

Heed not the night; a summer lodge amid the wild is mine - 'Tis shadowed by the tulip-tree, 'tis mantled by the vine.

— William Cullen Bryant man

When April winds Grew soft, the maple burst into a flush Of scarlet flowers. The tulip tree, high up, Opened in airs of June her multitude Of golden chalices to humming-birds And silken-wing'd insects of the sky.

— William Cullen Bryant sky

The victory of endurance born.

— William Cullen Bryant victory

Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again; The eternal years of God are hers; But Error, wounded, writhes with pain, And dies among his worshippers.

— William Cullen Bryant art

These struggling tides of life that seem In wayward, aimless course to tend, Are eddies of the mighty stream That rolls to its appointed end.

— William Cullen Bryant life

And suns grow meek, and the meek suns grow brief, And the year smiles as it draws near its death.

— William Cullen Bryant death

Glorious are the woods in their latest gold and crimson, Yet our full-leaved willows are in the freshest green. Such a kindly autumn, so mercifully dealing With the growths of summer, I never yet have seen.

— William Cullen Bryant growth

The rugged trees are mingling Their flowery sprays in love; The ivy climbs the laurel To clasp the boughs above.

— William Cullen Bryant love

Wild was the day; the wintry sea Moaned sadly on New England's strand, When first the thoughtful and the free, Our fathers, trod the desert land.

— William Cullen Bryant sad

The right to discuss freely and openly, by speech, by the pen, by the press, all political questions, and to examine andupon all political institutions, is a right so clear and certain, so interwoven with our other liberties, so necessary, in fact to their existence, that without it we must fall at once into depression or anarchy. To say that he who holds unpopular opinions must hold them at the peril of his life, and that, if he expresses them in public, he has only himself to blame if they who disagree with him should rise and put him to death, is to strike at all rights, all liberties, all protection of the laws, and to justify and extenuate all crimes.

— William Cullen Bryant life

To him who in the love of Nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language.

— William Cullen Bryant love

Go forth under the open sky, and list To Nature's teachings.

— William Cullen Bryant teaching

The hills, Rock-ribbed, and ancient as the sun.

— William Cullen Bryant sun

Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste.

— William Cullen Bryant ocean

All that tread, The globe are but a handful to the tribes That slumber in its bosom.

— William Cullen Bryant read

So live, that when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan which 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.

— William Cullen Bryant death

A beautiful city is Richmond, seated on the hills that overlook the James River. The dwellings have a pleasant appearance, often standing by themselves in the midst of gardens. In front of several, I saw large magnolias, their dark, glazed leaves glittering in the March sunshine.

— William Cullen Bryant beautiful

I think I shall return to America even a better patriot than when I left it. A citizen of the United States, travelling on the continent of Europe, finds the contrast between a government of power and a government of opinion forced upon him at every step.

— William Cullen Bryant power

The birch-bark canoe of the savage seems to me one of the most beautiful and perfect things of the kind constructed by human art.

— William Cullen Bryant art

A herd of prairie-wolves will enter a field of melons and quarrel about the division of the spoils as fiercely and noisily as so many politicians.

— William Cullen Bryant man

Nothing can be more striking to one who is accustomed to the little inclosures called public parks in our American cities, than the spacious, open grounds of London. I doubt, in fact, whether any person fully comprehends their extent, from any of the ordinary descriptions of them, until he has seen them or tried to walk over them.

— William Cullen Bryant doubt

The Parisian has his amusements as regularly as his meals, the theatre, music, the dance, a walk in the Tuilleries, a refection in the cafe, to which ladies resort as commonly as the other sex. Perpetual business, perpetual labor, is a thing of which he seems to have no idea.

— William Cullen Bryant music

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