William C. Bryant Quotes

Showers and sunshine bring, Slowly, the deepening verdure o'er the earth; To put their foliage out, the woods are slack, And one by one the singing-birds come back.

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.

Thou blossom bright with autumn dew, And colored with the heaven's own blue.

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.

Ere, in the northern gale, The summer tresses of the trees are gone, The woods of Autumn, all around our vale, Have put their glory on.

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

The fiercest agonies have shortest reign; And after dreams of horror, comes again The welcome morning with its rays of peace.

Ah! never shall the land forget How gushed the life-blood of her brave -

But Winter has yet brighter scenes-he boasts Splendors beyond what gorgeous Summer knows; Or Autumn with his many fruits, and woods All flushed with many hues.

Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again.

And kind the voice and glad the eyes That welcome my return at night.

The mighty Rain Holds the vast empire of the sky alone.

So they, who climb to wealth, forget The friends in darker fortunes tried. I copied them--but I regret That I should ape the ways of pride.

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.

The journalist should be on his guard against publishing what is false in taste or exceptionable in morals.

There is a Power whose care Teaches thy way.

The sweet calm sunshine of October, now Warms the low spot; upon its grassy mold The pur0ple oak-leaf falls; the birchen bough drops its bright spoil like arrow-heads of gold.

All things that are on earth shall wholly pass away, Except the love of God, which shall live and last for aye.

Look on this beautiful world, and read the truth in her fair page.

Poetry is that art which selects and arranges the symbols of thought in such a manner as to excite the imagination the most powerfully and delightfully.

Error's monstrous shapes from earth are driven They fade, they fly--but truth survives the flight.

All great poets have been men of great knowledge.

Flowers spring up unsown and die ungathered.

A melancholy sound is in the air, A deep sigh in the distance, a shrill wail Around my dwelling. 'Tis the Wind of night.

Is not thy home among the flowers?

Poetry is the eloquence of verse.

Adversity is the nurse of greatness which roughly rocks her patients back to health.

Yet will that beauteous image make The dreary sea less drear And thy remembered smile will wake The hope that tramples fear

Ah, never shall the land forget How gush'd the life-blood of the brave, Gush'd warm with hope and courage yet, Upon the soil they fought to save!

The gentle race of flowers Are lying in their lowly beds.

A stable, changeless state, 'twere cause indeed to weep.

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

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

The breath of springtime at this twilight hour Comes through the gathering glooms, And bears the stolen sweets of many a flower Into my silent rooms.

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.

The hushed winds their Sabbath keep.

Follow thou thy choice.

Tender pauses speak The overflow of gladness, When words are all too weak.

He [William Henry Harrison] did not live long enough to prove his incapacity for the office of President.

And at my silent window-sill The jessamine peeps in.

[Thanatopsis] was written in 1817, when Bryant was 23. Had he died then, the world would have thought it had lost a great poet. But he lived on.

The moon is at her full, and riding high, Floods the calm fields with light. The airs that hover in the summer sky Are all asleep tonight.

Weep not that the world changes - did it keep a stable, changeless state, it were cause indeed to weep.

Where hast thou wandered, gentle gale, to find the perfumes thou dost bring?

The little windflower, whose just opened eye is blue as the spring heaven it gazes at.

There is no glory in star or blossom till looked upon by a loving eye There is no fragrance in April breezes till breathed with joy as they wander by.