Graded Poetry: Seventh Year Part 8

Amen.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT AMERICA, 1794-1878

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 Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler's eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, As, darkly painted on the crimson sky, Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, Or where the rocking billows rise and sink On the chafed ocean side?

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, Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, Though the dark night is near.

And soon that toil shall end; Soon shalt thou find a summer home and rest, And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend, Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest.

Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, And shall not soon depart.

He who, from zone to zone, Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, In the long way that I must tread alone, Will lead my steps aright.

THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS

The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear.

Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead; They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread; The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay, And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day.

Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood?

Alas! they all are in their graves, the gentle race of flowers Are lying in their lowly beds with the fair and good of ours.

The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold November rain Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again.

The windflower and the violet, they perished long ago, And the brier rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow; But on the hills the goldenrod, 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 perished 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 was it that one like that young friend of ours, So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers.

THANATOPSIS

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 healing sympathy, that steals away Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts 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 up Thine individual being, shalt thou go To mix for ever with the elements, To be a brother to the insensible rock And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mold.

Yet not to thine eternal resting-place Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down With patriarchs of the infant world--with kings, The powerful of the earth--the wise, the good, Fair forms, and h.o.a.ry seers of ages past, All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun,--the vales Stretching in pensive quietness between; The venerable woods--rivers that move 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, Are s.h.i.+ning on the sad abodes of death, Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread The globe are but a handful to the tribes That slumber in its bosom.--Take the wings Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness, Or lose thyself in the continuous woods Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound, Save his own das.h.i.+ngs--yet the dead are there: And millions in those solitudes, since first The flight of years began, have laid them down In their last sleep--the dead reign there alone.

So shalt thou rest, and what if thou withdraw In silence from the living, and no friend Take note of thy departure? All that breathe Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care Plod on, and each one as before will chase His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave Their mirth and their employments, and shall come And make their bed with thee. As the long train Of ages glides away, the sons of men, The youth in life's fresh spring, and he who goes In the full strength of years, matron, and maid, The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man,-- Shall one by one be gathered to thy side, By those, who in their turn shall follow them.

So live, that when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan, which moves To 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, 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.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON AMERICA, 1803-1882

'Twas one of the charmed days When the genius of G.o.d doth flow, The wind may alter twenty ways, A tempest cannot blow; It may blow north, it still is warm; Or south, it still is clear; Or east, it smells like a clover-farm; Or west, no thunder fear.

The musing peasant lowly great Beside the forest water sate; The rope-like pine roots crosswise grown Compose the network of his throne; The wide lake, edged with sand and gra.s.s, Was burnished to a floor of gla.s.s, Painted with green and proud Of the tree and of the cloud.

He was the heart of all the scene; On him the sun looked more serene; To hill and cloud his face was known,-- It seemed the likeness of their own; They knew by secret sympathy The public child of earth and sky.

"You ask," he said, "what guide Me through trackless thickets led, Through thick-stemmed woodlands rough and wide.

I found the water's bed.

The watercourses were my guide; I traveled grateful by their side, Or through their channel dry; They led me through the thicket damp, Through brake and fern, the beaver's camp, Through beds of granite cut my road, And their resistless friends.h.i.+p showed: The falling waters led me, The foodful waters fed me, And brought me to the lowest land, Unerring to the ocean sand.

The moss upon the forest bark Was pole-star when the night was dark; The purple berries in the wood Supplied me necessary food; For Nature ever faithful is To such as trust her faithfulness.

When the forest shall mislead me, When the night and morning lie, When sea and land refuse to feed me, 'Twill be time enough to die; Then will yet my mother yield A pillow in her greenest field, Nor the June flowers scorn to cover The clay of their departed lover."

--From "WOODNOTES."

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW AMERICA, 1807-1882

DAYBREAK

A wind came up out of the sea, And said, "O mists, make room for me."

It hailed the s.h.i.+ps, and cried, "Sail on, Ye mariners, the night is gone."

And hurried landward far away, Crying, "Awake! it is the day."

It said unto the forest, "Shout!

Hang all your leafy banners out!"

It touched the wood-bird's folded wing, And said, "O bird, awake and sing."

And o'er the farms, "O chanticleer, Your clarion blow; the day is near."

It whispered to the fields of corn, "Bow down, and hail the coming morn."

It shouted through the belfry-tower, "Awake, O bell! proclaim the hour."

It crossed the churchyard with a sigh, And said, "Not yet! in quiet lie."

THE FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY OF AGa.s.sIZ

May 28, 1857

It was fifty years ago In the pleasant month of May, In the beautiful Pays de Vaud, A child in its cradle lay.