William Cullen Bryant Quotes

103 Sourced Quotes

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.

William Cullen Bryant
Music is not merely a study, it is an entertainment; wherever there is music there is a throng of listeners.

William Cullen Bryant
Do not the bright June roses blow
To meet thy kiss at morning hours?

William Cullen Bryant
Scarlet tufts Are glowing in the green, like flakes of fire; The wanderers of the prairie know them well, And call that brilliant flower the Painted Cup.

William Cullen Bryant
The birch-bark canoe of the savage seems to me one of the most beautiful and perfect things of the kind constructed by human art.

William Cullen Bryant
Oh, Constellations of the early night
That sparkled brighter as the twilight died,
And made the darkness glorious! I have seen
Your rays grow dim upon the horizon's edge
And sink behind the mountains. I have seen
The great Orion, with his jewelled belt,
That large-limbed warrior of the skies, go down
Into the gloom. Beside him sank a crowd
Of shining ones.

William Cullen Bryant
Lay down the axe; fling by the spade;
Leave in its track the toiling plough;
The rifle and the bayonet-blade
For arms like yours were fitter now;
And let the hands that ply the pen
Quit the light task, and learn to wield
The horseman's crooked brand, and rein
The charger on the battle-field.

William Cullen Bryant
Pleasantly, between the pelting showers, the sunshine gushes down.

William Cullen Bryant
The gay will laugh When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care Plod on, and each one as before will chase His favourite phantom; yet all these shall leave Their mirth and their employments, and shall come, And make their bed with thee.

William Cullen Bryant
The sad and solemn night hath yet her multitude of cheerful fires;
The glorious host of light walk the dark hemisphere till she retires;
All through her silent watches, gliding slow,
Her constellations come, and climb the heavens, and go.

William Cullen Bryant
Ah, never shall the land forget
How gush'd the life-blood of the brave,
Gush'd warm with hope and courage yet,
Upon the soil they fought to save!

William Cullen Bryant
Ye winds ye unseen currents of the air,
Softly ye played a few brief hours ago;
Ye bore the murmuring bee; ye tossed the air
O'er maiden cheeks, that took a fresher glow;
Ye rolled the round white cloud through depths of blue;
Ye shook from shaded flowers the lingering dew;
Before you the catalpa's blossoms flew,
Light blossoms, dropping on the grass like snow.

William Cullen Bryant
I know where the young May violet grows, In its lone and lowly nook.

William Cullen Bryant
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 towards heaven.

William Cullen Bryant
Of Sanguinaria, from whose brittle stem The red drops fell like blood.

William Cullen Bryant
So they, who climb to wealth, forget
The friends in darker fortunes tried.
I copied them--but I regret
That I should ape the ways of pride.

William Cullen Bryant
War, like all other situations of danger and of change, calls forth the exertion of admirable intellectual qualities and great virtues, and it is only by dwelling on these, and keeping out of sight the sufferings and sorrows, and all the crimes and evils that follow in its train, that it has its glory in the eyes of men.

William Cullen Bryant
The right to discuss freely and openly, by speech, by the pen, by the press, all political questions, and to examine the animadvert upon all political institutions is a right so clear and certain, so interwoven with our other liberties, so necessary, in fact, to their existence, that without it we must fall into despotism and anarchy.

William Cullen Bryant
Lo! while we are gazing, in swifter haste
Stream down the snows, till the air is white,
As, myriads by myriads madly chased,
They fling themselves from their shadowy height.
The fair, frail creatures of middle sky,
What speed they make, with their grave so nigh;
Flake after flake,
To lie in the dark and silent lake!

William Cullen Bryant
Whose young and half transparent leaves scare cast A shade gray circles of anemones Danced on their stalks.

William Cullen Bryant
Error's monstrous shapes from earth are driven
They fade, they fly--but truth survives the flight.

William Cullen Bryant
Showers and sunshine bring,
Slowly, the deepening verdure o'er the earth;
To put their foliage out, the woods are slack,
And one by one the singing-birds come back.

William Cullen Bryant
I hear the howl of the wind that brings
The long drear storm on its heavy wings.

William Cullen Bryant
Virtue cannot dwell with slaves, nor reign O'er those who cower to take a tyrant's yoke.

William Cullen Bryant
Your peaks are beautiful, ye Apennines!
In the soft light of these serenest skies;
From the broad highland region, black with pines,
Fair as the hills of Paradise they rise,
Bathed in the tint Peruvian slaves behold
In rosy flushes on the virgin gold.

William Cullen Bryant
Or columbines, in purple dressed, Nod o'er the ground-bird's hidden nest.

William Cullen Bryant
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.

William Cullen Bryant
Oh, river! darkling river! what a voice
Is that thou utterest while all else is still--
The ancient voice that, centuries ago,
Sounded between thy hills, while Rome was yet
A weedy solitude by Tiber's stream!

William Cullen Bryant
I grieve for life's bright promise, just shown and then withdrawn.

William Cullen Bryant
Tender pauses speak
The overflow of gladness,
When words are all too weak.

William Cullen Bryant