William C. Bryant Quotes

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.

The sad and solemn night hath yet her multitude of cheerful fires;

The glorious host of light walk the dark hemisphere till she retires; All through her silent watches, gliding slow, Her constellations come, and climb the heavens, and go.

Hark to that shrill, sudden shout, The cry of an applauding multitude, Swayed by some loud-voiced orator who wields The living mass as if he were its soul!

It is said to be the manner of hypochondriacs to change often their physician.

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

Autumn, the year's last, loveliest smile.

There is a day of sunny rest For every dark and troubled night;

And grief may hide an evening guest, But joy shall come with early light.

The groves were God's first temples.

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

The right to discuss freely and openly, by speech, by the pen, by the press, all political questions, and to examine the animadvert upon 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 into despotism and anarchy.

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

Or, bide thou where the poppy blows With windflowers fail and fair.

Self-interest is the most ingenious and persuasive of all the agents that deceive our consciences, while by means of it our unhappy and stubborn prejudices operate in their greatest force.

I shall seeThe hour of death draw near to me,Hope, blossoming within my heart. . . .

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

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

Glorious are the woods in their latest gold and crimson.

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

I hear the howl of the wind that brings The long drear storm on its heavy wings.

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

The rose that lives its little hour Is prized beyone the sculpted flower.

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?

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.

Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste.

Ah, passing few are they who speak, Wild, stormy month! in praise of thee;

Yet though thy winds are loud and bleak, Thou art a welcome month to me. For thou, to northern lands, again The glad and glorious sun dost bring, And thou hast joined the gentle train And wear'st the gentle name of Spring.

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.

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

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

Fairest of all that earth beholds, the hues That live among the clouds, and flush the air, Lingering, and deepening at the hour of dews.

Thou who wouldst see the lovely and the wild Mingled in harmony on Nature's face, Ascend our rocky mountains. Let thy foot Fail not with weariness, for on their tops The beauty and the majesty of earth, Spread wide beneath, shall make thee to forget The steep and toilsome way.

Alas! to seize the moment When the heart inclines to heart, And press a suit with passion, Is not a woman's part. If man come not to gather The roses where they stand, They fade among their foliage, They cannot seek his hand.

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.

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.

On my cornice linger the ripe black grapes ungathered;

Children fill the groves with the echoes of their glee, Gathering tawny chestnuts, and shouting when beside them Drops the heavy fruit of the tall black-walnut tree.

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

The rugged trees are mingling Their flowery sprays in love;

The ivy climbs the laurel To clasp the boughs above.

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.

On rolls the stream with a perpetual sigh;

The rocks moan wildly as it passes by; Hyssop and wormwood border all the strand, And not a flower adorns the dreary land.

Beautiful isles! beneath the sunset skies tall, silver-shafted palm-trees rise, between full orange-trees that shade the living colonade.

It is a sultry day; the sun has drunk The dew that lay upon the morning grass; There is no rustling in the lofty elm That canopies my dwelling, and its shade Scarce cools me. All is silent, save the faint And interrupted murmur of the bee, Settling on the sick flowers, And then again Instantly on the wing.

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

Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood?

Lay down the axe; fling by the spade; Leave in its track the toiling plough; The rifle and the bayonet-blade For arms like yours were fitter now; And let the hands that ply the pen Quit the light task, and learn to wield The horseman's crooked brand, and rein The charger on the battle-field.

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

Eloquence is the poetry of prose.

Do not the bright June roses blow To meet thy kiss at morning hours?

The linden, in the fervors of July, Hums with a louder concert.

When the wind Sweeps the broad forest in its summer prime, As when some master-hand exulting sweeps The keys of some great organ, ye give forth The music of the woodland depths, a hymn Of gladness and of thanks.

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?

Your peaks are beautiful, ye Apennines! In the soft light of these serenest skies; From the broad highland region, black with pines, Fair as the hills of Paradise they rise, Bathed in the tint Peruvian slaves behold In rosy flushes on the virgin gold.