WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

[U. s. A.]

TO A WATERFOWL.

WHITHER, midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,

Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou

pursue

THANATOPSIS.

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

A various language: for his gayer hours She has a voice of gladness, and a smile And eloquence of beauty; and she glides Into his darker musings with a mild And gentle sympathy that steals away Their sharpness ere he is aware.

thoughts

When

Of the last bitter hour come like a blight Over thy spirit, and sad images of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,

Make thee to shudder and grow sick at heart,

Go forth under the open sky, and list To Nature's teachings, while from all around

Earth, and her waters, and the depths of air

Comes a still voice, - Yet a few days, and thee

The all-beholding sun shall see no more In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,

Where thy pale form was laid with many tears,

Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee,

shall claim

Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again, And, lost each human trace, surrendering

side

But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood,

And the yellow sunflower by the brook in autumn beauty stood,

Till fell the frost from the clear, cold heaven, as falls the plague on

men,

And the brightness of their smile was gone from upland, glade, and glen.

And now, when comes the calm, mild day, as still such days will come, To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home; When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still, And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill,

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.

And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died,

The fair, meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side:

In the cold, moist earth we laid her when the forest cast the leaf,

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

Yet not unmeet it was that one, like that

young friend of ours,

So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers.

TO THE FRINGED GENTIAN.

THOU blossom bright with autumn dew, And colored with the heaven's own blue, That openest when the quiet light Succeeds the keen and frosty night,

Thou comest not, when violets lean
O'er wandering brooks and springs unseen,
Or columbines, in purple drest,
Nod o'er the ground-bird's hidden nest.

Thou waitest late, and com'st alone,
When woods are bare, and birds are flown,
And frosts and shortening days portend
The aged year is near its end.

Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye
Look through its fringes to the sky,

Blue, blue, as if that sky let fall A flower from its cerulean wall.

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