Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant Part 10

And thou dost see them rise, Star of the Pole! and thou dost see them set.

Alone, in thy cold skies, Thou keep'st thy old unmoving station yet, Nor join'st the dances of that glittering train, Nor dipp'st thy virgin orb in the blue western main.

There, at morn's rosy birth, Thou lookest meekly through the kindling air, And eve, that round the earth Chases the day, beholds thee watching there; There noontide finds thee, and the hour that calls The shapes of polar flame to scale heaven's azure walls.

Alike, beneath thine eye, The deeds of darkness and of light are gone; High toward the starlit sky Towns blaze, the smoke of battle blots the sun, The night storm on a thousand hills is loud, And the strong wind of day doth mingle sea and cloud.

On thy unaltering blaze The half-wrecked mariner, his compa.s.s lost, Fixes his steady gaze, And steers, undoubting, to the friendly coast; And they who stray in perilous wastes, by night, Are glad when thou dost shine to guide their footsteps right.

And, therefore, bards of old, Sages and hermits of the solemn wood, Did in thy beams behold A beauteous type of that unchanging good, That bright eternal beacon, by whose ray The voyager of time should shape his heedful way.

THE LAPSE OF TIME.

Lament who will, in fruitless tears, The speed with which our moments fly; I sigh not over vanished years, But watch the years that hasten by.

Look, how they come--a mingled crowd Of bright and dark, but rapid days; Beneath them, like a summer cloud, The wide world changes as I gaze.

What! grieve that time has brought so soon The sober age of manhood on!

As idly might I weep, at noon, To see the blush of morning gone.

Could I give up the hopes that glow In prospect like Elysian isles; And let the cheerful future go, With all her promises and smiles?

The future!--cruel were the power Whose doom would tear thee from my heart, Thou sweetener of the present hour!

We cannot--no--we will not part.

Oh, leave me, still, the rapid flight That makes the changing seasons gay, The grateful speed that brings the night, The swift and glad return of day;

The months that touch, with added grace, This little prattler at my knee, In whose arch eye and speaking face New meaning every hour I see;

The years, that o'er each sister land Shall lift the country of my birth, And nurse her strength, till she shall stand The pride and pattern of the earth:

Till younger commonwealths, for aid, Shall cling about her ample robe, And from her frown shall shrink afraid The crowned oppressors of the globe.

True--time will seam and blanch my brow-- Well--I shall sit with aged men, And my good gla.s.s will tell me how A grizzly beard becomes me then.

And then, should no dishonor lie Upon my head, when I am gray, Love yet shall watch my fading eye, And smooth the path of my decay.

Then haste thee, Time--'tis kindness all That speeds thy winged feet so fast: Thy pleasures stay not till they pall, And all thy pains are quickly past.

Thou fliest and bear'st away our woes, And as thy shadowy train depart, The memory of sorrow grows A lighter burden on the heart.

THE SONG OF THE STARS.

When the radiant morn of creation broke, And the world in the smile of G.o.d awoke, And the empty realms of darkness and death Were moved through their depths by his mighty breath, And orbs of beauty and spheres of flame From the void abyss by myriads came-- In the joy of youth as they darted away, Through the widening wastes of s.p.a.ce to play, Their silver voices in chorus rang, And this was the song the bright ones sang:

"Away, away, through the wide, wide sky, The fair blue fields that before us lie-- Each sun with the worlds that round him roll, Each planet, poised on her turning pole; With her isles of green, and her clouds of white, And her waters that lie like fluid light.

"For the source of glory uncovers his face, And the brightness o'erflows unbounded s.p.a.ce, And we drink as we go to the luminous tides In our ruddy air and our blooming sides: Lo, yonder the living splendors play; Away, on our joyous path, away!

"Look, look, through our glittering ranks afar, In the infinite azure, star after star, How they brighten and bloom as they swiftly pa.s.s!

How the verdure runs o'er each rolling ma.s.s!

And the path of the gentle winds is seen, Where the small waves dance, and the young woods lean.

"And see, where the brighter day-beams pour, How the rainbows hang in the sunny shower; And the morn and eve, with their pomp of hues, Shift o'er the bright planets and shed their dews; And 'twixt them both, o'er the teeming ground, With her shadowy cone the night goes round!

"Away, away! in our blossoming bowers, In the soft airs wrapping these spheres of ours, In the seas and fountains that shine with morn, See, Love is brooding, and Life is born, And breathing myriads are breaking from night, To rejoice, like us, in motion and light.

"Glide on in your beauty, ye youthful spheres, To weave the dance that measures the years; Glide on, in the glory and gladness sent To the furthest wall of the firmament-- The boundless visible smile of Him To the veil of whose brow your lamps are dim."

A FOREST HYMN.

The groves were G.o.d's first temples. Ere man learned To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave, And spread the roof above them--ere he framed The lofty vault, to gather and roll back The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood, Amid the cool and silence, he knelt down, And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks And supplication. For his simple heart Might not resist the sacred influences Which, from the stilly twilight of the place, And from the gray old trunks that high in heaven Mingled their mossy boughs, and from the sound Of the invisible breath that swayed at once All their green tops, stole over him, and bowed His spirit with the thought of boundless power And inaccessible majesty. Ah, why Should we, in the world's riper years, neglect G.o.d's ancient sanctuaries, and adore Only among the crowd, and under roofs That our frail hands have raised? Let me, at least, Here, in the shadow of this aged wood, Offer one hymn--thrice happy, if it find Acceptance in His ear.

Father, thy hand Hath reared these venerable columns, thou Didst weave this verdant roof. Thou didst look down Upon the naked earth, and, forthwith, rose All these fair ranks of trees. They, in thy sun, Budded, and shook their green leaves in thy breeze, And shot toward heaven. The century-living crow Whose birth was in their tops, grew old and died Among their branches, till, at last, they stood, As now they stand, ma.s.sy, and tall, and dark, Fit shrine for humble worshipper to hold Communion with his Maker. These dim vaults, These winding aisles, of human pomp or pride Report not. No fantastic carvings show The boast of our vain race to change the form Of thy fair works. But thou art here--thou fill'st The solitude. Thou art in the soft winds That run along the summit of these trees In music; thou art in the cooler breath That from the inmost darkness of the place Comes, scarcely felt; the barky trunks, the ground, The fresh moist ground, are all instinct with thee.

Here is continual worship;--Nature, here, In the tranquillity that thou dost love, Enjoys thy presence. Noiselessly, around, From perch to perch, the solitary bird Pa.s.ses; and yon clear spring, that, midst its herbs, Wells softly forth and wandering steeps the roots Of half the mighty forest, tells no tale Of all the good it does. Thou hast not left Thyself without a witness, in the shades, Of thy perfections. Grandeur, strength, and grace Are here to speak of thee. This mighty oak-- By whose immovable stem I stand and seem Almost annihilated--not a prince, In all that proud old world beyond the deep, E'er wore his crown as loftily as he Wears the green coronal of leaves with which Thy hand has graced him. Nestled at his root Is beauty, such as blooms not in the glare Of the broad sun. That delicate forest flower, With scented breath and look so like a smile, Seems, as it issues from the shapeless mould, An emanation of the indwelling Life, A visible token of the upholding Love, That are the soul of this great universe.

My heart is awed within me when I think Of the great miracle that still goes on, In silence, round me--the perpetual work Of thy creation, finished, yet renewed Forever. Written on thy works I read The lesson of thy own eternity.

Lo! all grow old and die--but see again, How on the faltering footsteps of decay Youth presses--ever gay and beautiful youth In all its beautiful forms. These lofty trees Wave not less proudly that their ancestors Moulder beneath them. Oh, there is not lost One of earth's charms: upon her bosom yet, After the flight of untold centuries, The freshness of her far beginning lies And yet shall lie. Life mocks the idle hate Of his arch-enemy Death--yea, seats himself Upon the tyrant's throne--the sepulchre, And of the triumphs of his ghastly foe Makes his own nourishment. For he came forth From thine own bosom, and shall have no end.

There have been holy men who hid themselves Deep in the woody wilderness, and gave Their lives to thought and prayer, till they outlived The generation born with them, nor seemed Less aged than the h.o.a.ry trees and rocks Around them;--and there have been holy men Who deemed it were not well to pa.s.s life thus.

But let me often to these solitudes Retire, and in thy presence rea.s.sure My feeble virtue. Here its enemies, The pa.s.sions, at thy plainer footsteps shrink And tremble and are still. O G.o.d! when thou Dost scare the world with tempests, set on fire The heavens with falling thunderbolts, or fill, With all the waters of the firmament, The swift dark whirlwind that uproots the woods And drowns the villages; when, at thy call, Uprises the great deep and throws himself Upon the continent, and overwhelms Its cities--who forgets not, at the sight Of these tremendous tokens of thy power, His pride, and lays his strifes and follies by?

Oh, from these sterner aspects of thy face Spare me and mine, nor let us need the wrath Of the mad unchained elements to teach Who rules them. Be it ours to meditate, In these calm shades, thy milder majesty, And to the beautiful order of thy works Learn to conform the order of our lives.

"OH FAIREST OF THE RURAL MAIDS."

Oh fairest of the rural maids!

Thy birth was in the forest shades; Green boughs, and glimpses of the sky, Were all that met thine infant eye.

Thy sports, thy wanderings, when a child, Were ever in the sylvan wild; And all the beauty of the place Is in thy heart and on thy face.

The twilight of the trees and rocks Is in the light shade of thy locks; Thy step is as the wind, that weaves Its playful way among the leaves.

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.