Quotes from William Cullen Bryant

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

These are the gardens of the desert, theseThe unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful,For which the speech of England has no name—The prairies.

So live, that when thy summons comes to joinThe innumerable caravan which movesTo that mysterious realm, where each shall takeHis chamber in the silent halls of death,Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothedBy an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,Like one that wraps the drapery of his couchAbout him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

The groves were God's first temples.

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

I grieve for life's bright promise, just shown and then withdrawn.

To him who in the love of Nature holdsCommunion with her visible forms, she speaksA various language.

Difficulty, my brethren, is the nurse of greatness-a harsh nurse, who roughly rocks her foster-children into strength and athletic proportion.

Truth crushed to earth shall rise again.

And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief;

And the yellow sunflower by the brook, in autumn beauty stood.

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, sustain'd 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." Thanatopsis

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

Can anything be imagined more abhorrent to every sentiment of generosity and justice, than the law which arms the rich with the legal right to fix, by assize, the wages of the poor? If this is not slavery, we have forgotten its definition. Strike the right of associating for the sale of labor from the privileges of a freeman, and you may as well bind him to a master, or ascribe him to the soil.

All at once A fresher wind sweeps by, and breaks my dream, And I am in the wilderness alone.

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

The groves were God's first temple

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

The sounds I had heard seemed worthy to mingle with this bright and perfumed atmosphere, and to thrill the beautiful scenery around me.

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.

Pain dies quickly, and lets her weary prisoners go; the fiercest agonies have shortest reign.

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

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

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