Poetical works of William Cullen Bryant

Front matter

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Contents

JPOEMS :

FAGE

X The Ages . . •.

I

When to the common rest that crowns our days, Called in the noon of life, the good man goes, Or full of years, and ripe in wisdom, lays His silver temples in their last repose ; When, o'er the buds of youth, the death- wind blows And blights the fairest ; when our bitter tears Stream, as the eyes of those that love us close. We think on what they were, with many fears Lest goodness die with them, and leave the coming yeara^

II

And therefore, to our hearts, the days gone by. When lived the honored sage whose death we wept. And the soft virtues beamed from many an eye. And beat in many a heart that long has slept — Like spots of earth where angel-feet have stepped, Are holy ; and high-dreaming bards have told Of times when worth was crowned, and faith was kept Ere friendship grew a snare, or love waxed cold — Those pure and happy times — the golden days of old.

III

Peace to the just man's memory ; let it grow Greener with years, and blossom through the flight Of ages ; let the mimic canvas show His calm benevolent features ; let the light 3

Stream on his deeds of love, that shunned the sight Of all but heaven, and in the book of fame The glorious record of his virtues write And hold it up to men, and bid them claim A palm like his, and catch from him the hallowed flame.

IV

But oh, despair not of their fate who rise To dwell upon the earth when we withdraw ! Lo ! the same shaft by which the righteous dies, Strikes through the wretch that scoffed at mercy's law And trode his brethren down, and felt no awe Of Him who will avenge them. Stainless worth, Such as the sternest age of virtue saw, Ripens, meanwhile, till time shall call it forth From the low modest shade, to light and bless the earth,

v.

Has Nature, in her calm, majestic march. Faltered with age at last ? does the bright sun Grow dim in heaven ? or, in their far blue arch, Sparkle the crowd of stars, when day is done, Less brightly ? when the dew-lipped Spring comes on, Breathes she with airs less soft, or scents the sky With flowers less fair than when her reign begun ? Does prodigal Autumn, to our age, deny The plenty that once swelled beneath his sober eye ?

VI

Look on this beautiful world, and read the truth In her fair page ; see, every season brings New change, to her, of everlasting youth ; Still the green soil, with joyous living things, Swarms, the wide air is full of joyous wings. And myriads, still, are happy in the sleep Of ocean's azure gulfs, and where be flings The restless surge. Eternal Love doth keep, In his complacent arms, the earth, the air, the deep.

^^ Nature^ in her calm, majestic march J*

VII

Will then the merciful One, who stamped our race With his own image, and who gave them sway O'er earth, and the glad dwellers on her face, Now that our swarming nations far away Are spread, where'er the moist earth drinks the day, Forget the ancient care that taught and nursed His latest offspring ? will he quench the ray Infused by his own forming smile at first. And leave a work so fair all blighted and accursed ? *

VIII

Oh, no ! a thousand cheerful omens give Hope of yet happier days, whose dawn is nigh. He who has tamed the elements, shall not live The slave of his own passions ; he whose eye Unwinds the eternal dances of the sky. And in the abyss of brightness dares to span The sun's broad circle, rising yet more high. In God's magnificent works his will shall scan — And love and peace shall make their paradise with man.

IX

Sit at the feet of History — through the night Of years the steps of virtue she shall trace. And show the earlier ages, where her sight Can pierce the eternal shadows o'er their face ; — When, from the genial cradle of our race. Went forth the tribes of men, their pleasant lot To choose, where palm-groves cooled their dwelling-place, Or freshening rivers ran ; and there forgot The truth of heaven, and kneeled to gods that heard them not.

X

Then waited not the murderer for the night. But smote his brother down in the bright day, And he who felt the Vt^rong, and had the might, His own avenger, girt himself to slay ;

Beside the path the unburied carcass lay ; The shepHerd, by the fountains of the glen, Fled, while the robber swept his flock away, And slew his babes. The sick, untended then. Languished in the damp shade, and died afar from men

XI

But misery brought in love ; in passion's strife Man gave his heart to mercy, pleading long. And sought out gentle deeds to gladden life ; The weak, against the sons of spoil and wrong, Banded, and watched their hamlets, and grew strong ; States rose, and, in the shadow of their might, The timid rested. To the reverent throng, Grave and time-wrinkled men, with locks all white, Gave laws, and judged their strifes, and taught the way of right ;

XII

Till bolder spirits seized the rule, and nailed On men the yoke that man should never bear, And drave them forth to battle. Lo ! unveiled The scene of those stern ages ! What is there ? A boundless sea of blood, and the wild air Moans with the crimsoned surges that entomb Cities and bannered armies ; forms that wear The kingly circlet rise, amid the gloom, 0'*^r the dark wave, and straight are swallowed in its womb.

XIII

Those ages Lave no memory, but they left A record in the assert — columns strown On the waste sands, and statues fallen and cleft, Heaped like a host in battle overthrown ; Vast ruins, where the mountain's ribs of stone Were hewn into a city ; streets that spread In the dark earth, where never breath has blown Of heaven's sweet air, nor foot of man dares tread The long and perilous ways — the Cities of the Dead !

XIV

And tombs of monarclis to the clouds up-piled — They perished, but the eternal tombs remain — And the black precipice, abrupt and wild, Pierced by long toil and hollowed to a fane ; — Huge piers and frowning forms of gods sustain The everlasting arches, dark and wide, Like the night-heaven, when clouds are black with rain. But idly skill was tasked, and strength was plied, All was the work of slaves to swell a despot's pride.

XV

And Virtue cannot dwell with slaves, nor reign O'er those who cower to take a tyrant's yoke ; She left the down-trod nations in disdain, And flew to Greece, when Liberty awoke, New-born, amid those glorious vales, and broke Sceptre and chain with her fair youthful hands : As rocks are shivered in the thunder-stroke. And lo ! in full-grown strength, an empire stands Of leagued and rival states, the wonder of the lands.

XVI

Oh, Greece ! thy flourishing cities were a spoil Unto each other ; thy hard hand oppressed And crushed the helpless ; thou didst make thy soil Drunk with the blood of those that loved thee best ; And thou didst drive, from thy unnatural breast. Thy just and brave to die in distant climes ; Earth shuddered at thy deeds, and sighed for rest From thine abominations ; after-times, That yet shall read thy tale, wi^l tremble at thy crimes J

XVII

Yet there was that within thee which has saved Thy glory, and redeemed thy blotted name ; The story of thy better deeds, engraved On fame's unmouldering pillar, puts to shame

IQ POEMS.

Our chiller virtue ; tlie high art to tame The whirlwind of the passions was thy own ; And the pure ray, that from thy bosom came, Far over many a land and age has shone, And mingles with the light that beams from God's own throne.

XVIII

And Rome — thy sterner, younger sister, she Who awed the world with her imperial frown — Rome drew the spirit of her race from thee, The rival of thy shame and thy renown. Yet her degenerate children sold the crown Of earth's wide kingdoms to a line of slaves ; Guilt reigned, and woe with guilt, and plagues came down, Till the North broke its floodgates, and the waves Whelmed the degraded race, and weltered o'er their graves.

XIX

Vainly that ray of brightness from above, That shone around the Galilean lake, The light of hope, the leading star of love, Struggled, the darkness of that day to break ; Even its own faithless guardians strove to slake. In fogs of earth, the pure ethereal flame ; And priestly hands, for Jesus' blessed sake. Were red with blood, and charity became. In that stern war of forms, a mockery and a name.

XX

They triumphed, and less bloody rites were kept Within the quiet of the convent-cell ; The well-fed inmates pattered prayer, and slept. And sinned, and liked their easy penance well. Where pleasant was the spot for men to dwell, Amid its fair broad lands the abbey lay. Sheltering dark orgies that were shame to tell. And cowled and barefoot beggars swarmed the way. All in their convent weeds, of black, and white, and gray

XXI

Oh, sweetly the returning muses' strain Swelled over that famed stream, whose gentle tide In their bright lap the Etrurian vales detain. Sweet, as when winter storms have ceased to chide, And all the new-leaved woods, resounding wide, Send out wild hymns upon the scented air. Lo ! to the smiling Arno's classic side The emulous nations of the West repair, A.nd kindle their quenched urns, and drink fresh spirit ther.

XXII

Still, Heaven deferred the hour ordained to rend From saintly rottenness the sacred stole ; And cowl and worshipped shrine could still defend The wretch with felon stains upon his soul ; And crimes were set to sale, and hard his dole Who could not bribe a passage to the skies ; And vice, beneath the mitre's kind control. Sinned gayly on, and grew to giant size. Shielded by priestly power, and watched by priestly eyes.

XXIII,

At last the earthquake came — the shock, that hurled To dust, in many fragments dashed and strown. The throne, whose roots were in another world, And whose far-stretching shadow awed our own. From many a proud monastic pile, o'erthrown. Fear-struck, the hooded inmates rushed and fled ; The web, that for a thousand years had grown O'er prostrate Europe, in that day of dread Crumbled and fell, as fire dissolves the flaxen thread.

XXIV

The spirit of that day is still awake. And spreads himself, and shall not sleep again ; But through the idle mesh of power shall break Like billows o'er the Asian monarch's chain ;

Till men are filled with him, and feel how vain, Instead of the pure heart and innocent hands, Are all the proud and pompous modes to gain The smile of Heaven ; — till a new age expands Its white and holy wings above the peaceful lands.

XXV

For look again on the past years ; — ^behold. How like the nightmare's dreams have flown away Horrible forms of worship, that, of old. Held, o'er the shuddering realms, unquestioned sway : See crimes, that feared not once the eye of day, Rooted from men, without a name or place : See nations blotted out from earth, to pay The forfeit of deep guilt ; — with glad embrace The fair disburdened lands welcome a nobler race.

XXVI

Thus error's monstrous shapes from earth are driven ; They fade, they fly — but Truth survives their flight ;

- Earth has no shades to quench that beam of heaven ; Each ray that shone, in early time, to light The faltering footstep in the path of right, Each gleam of clearer brightness shed to aid In man's maturer day his bolder sight. All blended, like the rainbow's radiant braid,

Pour yet, and still shall pour, the blaze that cannot fade.

XXVII

Late, from this Western shore, that morning chased The deep and ancient night, which threw its shroud O'er the green land of groves, the beautiful waste, Nurse of full streams, and lifter-up of proud Sky-mingling mountains that o'erlook the cloud. Erewhile, where yon gay spires their brightness rear, Trees waved, and the brown hunter's shouts were loud Amid the forest ; and the bounding deer Fled at the glancing plume, and the gaunt wolf yelled near.

XXVIII

And where his willing waves yon bright blue bay Sends up, to kiss his decorated brim, And cradles, in his soft embrace, the gay Young group of grassy islands born of him, And crowding nigh, or in the distance dim, Lifts the white throng of sails, that bear or bring The commerce of the world ; — with tawny limb. And belt and beads in sunlight glistening. The savage urged his skiff like. wild bird on the wing.

XXIX

Then all this youthful paradise around. And all the broad and boundless mainland, lay Cooled by the interminable wood, that frowned O'er mount and vale, where never summer ray Glanced, till the strong tornado broke his way Through the gray giants of the sylvan wild ; Yet many a sheltered glade, with blossoms gay Beneath the showery sky and sunshine mild. Within the shaggy arms of that dark forest smiled.

XXX

There stood the Indian hamlet, there the lake Spread its blue sheet that flashed with many an oar, Where the brown otter plunged him from the brake. And the deer drank : as the light gale flew o'er. The twinkling maize-field rustled on the shore ; And while that spot, so wild, and lone, and fair, A look of glad and guiltless beauty wore. And peace was on the earth and in the air. The warrior lit the pile, and bound his captive there.

XXXL

Not unavenged — ^the foeman, from the wood. Beheld the deed, and, when the midnight shade Was stillest, gorged his battle-axe with blood ; All died — the wailing babe — the shrinking maid —

And in the flood of fire that scathed the glade, The roofs went down ; but deep the silence grew, When on the dewy woods the day-beam played ; No more the cabin-smokes rose wreathed and blue, And ever, by their lake, lay moored the bark canoe.

XXXII

Look now abroad — another race has filled These populous borders — wide the wood recedes, And towns shoot up, and fertile realms are tilled ; The land is full of harvests and green meads ; Streams numberless, that many a fountain feeds, Shine, disembowered, and give to sun and breeze Their virgin waters ; the full region leads New colonies forth, that toward the western seas Spread, like a rapid flame among the autumnal trees.