BY W. C. BRYANT
William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878): The first American poet of note, and the one whose works show most loving appreciation of nature. His finest poem is "Thanatopsis," written when he was only eighteen. "The Death of the Flowers," "The Forest Hymn," "To a Waterfowl," and "To the Fringed Gentian" are the best of his poems deive of nature.
Whither, midst falling dew,
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursueThy solitary way?
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.
Seek"st thou the plashy1 brink
Of weedy lake, or marge2 of river wide, Or where the rocking billows rise and sinkOn the chafed ocean side?
1Plashy: watery.
2Marge: a poetical form of the word margin.
There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast --
The desert and illimitable1 air --
Lone wandering, but not lost.
All day thy wings have fanned,
At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere, Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,Though the dark night is near.
And soon that toil shall end;
Soon shalt thou find a summer home and rest, And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend,Soon, o"er thy sheltered nest.
Thou"rt gone, the abyss of heaven
Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,And shall not soon depart.
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.
1 Illimitable: boundless.