Quotes by William Cullen BryantThine 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.  Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste. 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. The little wind-flower, whose just opened eye
Is blue as the spring heaven it gazes at. The groves were God's first temples. 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? They talk of short-lived pleasuresbe 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. Remorse is virtue's root; its fair increase
Are fruits of innocence and blessedness. 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. The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,
Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere. 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. 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. 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. The victory of endurance born. 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. |
