William Cullen Bryant

Poet

1794-11-03 – 1878-06-12

William Cullen Bryant was an American poet and journalist best known for 'Thanatopsis'. He served for decades as editor of the New York Evening Post and was a major figure in 19th-century American letters.

Quotes by William Cullen Bryant

So live, that when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan which movesTo that mysterious realm where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of death, Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,Scourged to his dungeon; but, sustain'd and soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.Thanatopsis
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All that tread,The globe are but a handful to the tribes,That slumber in its bosom.
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All that tread,The globe are but a handful to the tribes,That slumber in its bosom.
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So live, that when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan which movesTo that mysterious realm where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of death, Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,Scourged to his dungeon; but, sustain'd and soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.Thanatopsis
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And suns grow meek, and the meek suns grow brief, and the year smiles as it draws near its death.
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A herd of prairie-wolves will enter a field of melons and quarrel about the division of the spoils as fiercely and noisily as so many politicians.
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Nothing can be more striking to one who is accustomed to the little inclosures called public parks in our American cities, than the spacious, open grounds of London. I doubt, in fact, whether any person fully comprehends their extent, from any of the ordinary descriptions of them, until he has seen them or tried to walk over them.
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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.
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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.
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The February sunshine steeps your boughs and tints the buds and swells the leaves within.
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All that tread, the globe are but a handful to the tribes, that slumber in its bosom.
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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.
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Pain dies quickly, and lets her weary prisoners go; the fiercest agonies have shortest reign.
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Weep not that the world changes - did it keep a stable, changeless state, it were cause indeed to weep.
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A stable, changeless state, 'twere cause indeed to weep.
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Weep not that the world changes-did it keep A stable, changeless state, 'twere cause indeed to weep.
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Sustained and soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
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Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again; The eternal years of God are hers; But Error, wounded, writhes in pain, And dies among his worshippers.
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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.
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Eternal Love doth keep In his complacent arms, the earth, the air, the deep.
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