67 William Cullen Bryant Quotes

William Cullen Bryant quotes

1. Vainly the fowler's eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, As, darkly painted on the crimson sky, Thy figure floats along.

2. He who, from zone to zone, Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, In the long way that I must tread alone, Will lead my steps aright.

3. Thine eyes are springs in whose serene And silent waters heaven is seen; Their lashes are the herbs that look On their young figures in the brook.

4. 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!

5. 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.

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

7. The groves were God's first temples.

8. 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?

9. 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.

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

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

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

13. 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.

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

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

16. 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.

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

18. 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.

19. 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.

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

21. 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.

22. The victory of endurance born.

23. 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.

24. 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.

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

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

27. 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.

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

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

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

31. Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste.

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

33. 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.

34. [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.

35. The stormy March has come at last, With winds and clouds and changing skies; I hear the rushing of the blast That through the snowy valley flies.

36. But 'neath yon crimson tree Lover to listening maid might breathe his flame, Nor mark, within its roseate canopy, Her blush of maiden shame.

37. A sculptor wields The chisel, and the stricken marble grows To beauty.

38. A world of blossoms for the bee, Flowers for the sick girl's silent room, For the glad infant sprigs of bloom, We plant with the apple tree.

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

40. Eloquence is the poetry of prose.

41. 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.

42. Modest and shy as a nun is she; One weak chirp is her only note; Braggarts and prince of braggarts is he, Pouring boasts from his little throat.

43. No trumpet-blast profound the hour in which the Prince of Peace was born; No bloody streamlet stained Earth's silver rivers on the sacred morn.

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

45. 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.

46. The daffodil is our doorside queen; she pushes upward the sword already, To spot with sunshine the early green.

47. The February sunshine steeps your boughs and tints the buds and swells the leaves within.

48. 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 to-night.

49. 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.

50. Truth gets well if she is run over by a locomotive, while error dies of lockjaw if she scratches her finger.

51. Where fall the tears of love the rose appears, And where the ground is bright with friendship's tears, Forget-me-not, and violets, heavenly blue, Spring glittering with the cheerful drops like dew.

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

53. Winning isn't everything, but it beats anything in second place.

1. Childhood, with all its mirth, Youth, Manhood, Age that draws us to the ground, And last, Man's Life on earth, Glide to thy dim dominions, and are bound.

2. 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.

3. The words of fire that from his pen Were flung upon the fervid page, Still move, still shake the hearts of men, Amid a cold and coward age.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. That rolls to its appointed end.

7. Love and cowardice are really the same thing.

8. 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.

9. Loveliest of lovely things are they, On earth, that soonest pass away

10. “The groves were God's first temple”

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

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

13. “Thou shalt lie down With patriarchs of the infant world,—with kings, The powerful of the earth,—the wise, the good, 35 Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past, All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun; the vales Stretching in pensive quietness between; The venerable woods—rivers that move 40 In majesty, and the complaining brooks 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!”

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