In majesty, and the complaining brooks That make the meadows green; and poured round all Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste Are but the solemn decorations all Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, So shalt thou rest; and what if thou withdraw The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes Shall one by one be gathered to thy side So live, that when thy summons comes to join To that mysterious realm where each shall take Thou go not like the quarry slave at night, Scourged to his dungeon; but, sustained and soothed LF THE CROWDED STREET WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT ET me move slowly through the street, Amid the sound of steps that beat The murmuring walks like autumn rain. How fast the flitting figures come! The mild, the fierce, the stony face Some bright with thoughtless smiles, and some Where secret tears have left their trace. They pass to toil, to strife, to rest, And some to happy homes repair, Where children, pressing cheek to cheek, With mute caresses shall declare The tenderness they cannot speak. And some, who walk in calmness here, Shall shudder as they reach the door Where one who made their dwelling dear, Its flower, its light, is seen no more. Youth, with pale cheek and slender frame, Keen son of trade, with eager brow, Who of this crowd to-night shall tread Some, famine-struck, shall think how long The cold dark hours, how slow the light; And some, who flaunt amid the throng, Shall hide in dens of shame to-night. Each where his task or pleasures call, R These struggling tides of life, that seem That rolls to its appointed end. TO A WATERFOWL WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT HITHER, midst falling dew, WE While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way? Vainly the fowler's eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, As, dimly seen against the distant sky, Thy figure floats along. Seek'st thou the plashy brink Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, Or where the rocky billows rise and sink There is a Power whose care Teaches thy way along that pathless coast The desert and illimitable air Lone wandering, but not lost. All day thy wings have fanned, At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere, And soon that toil shall end; Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend, Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven Hath swallowed up thy form; yet on my heart Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, He who, from zone to zone, Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, Will lead my steps aright. CATO ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL JOSEPH ADDISON T must be so-Plato, thou reasonest well! IT Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, Or whence this secret dread and inward horror 'Tis Heaven itself, that points out an hereafter, Eternity!-pleasing, dreadful thought! Through what variety of untried being, Through what new scenes and changes, must we pass! |