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William Cullen Bryant Quotes

1794–1878 United States

William Cullen Bryant (November 3, 1794 – June 12, 1878) was an American Romantic poet and journalist.

United States
19th-century poets
Journalists
Poets

Also known as: Bryant, William Cullen

Random William Cullen Bryant quote

51 quotes

The little wind-flower, whose just opened eye
Is blue as the spring heaven it gazes at.

Poems (1832)

Weep not that the world changes—did it keep
A stable, changeless state, 'twere cause indeed to weep.

Poems (1832)

And suns grow meek, and the meek suns grow brief,
And the year smiles as it draws near its death.

October. A Sonnet (1866)

And the blue gentian flower, that, in the breeze,
Nods lonely, of her beauteous race the last.

Poems (1832)

Loveliest of lovely things are they,
On earth, that soonest pass away.
The rose that lives its little hour
Is prized beyond the sculptured flower.

Poems (1832)

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

Thanatopsis (1817)

Pleasantly, between the pelting showers, the sunshine gushes down.

Maidens hearts are always soft:
Would that men's were truer!

Poems (1832)

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.

Poems (1832)

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.

Poems (1832)

The rugged trees are mingling
Their flowery sprays in love;
The ivy climbs the laurel
To clasp the boughs above.

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

Poems (1832)

All that tread,
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom.

Thanatopsis (1817)

All things that are on earth shall wholly pass away,
Except the love of God, which shall live and last for aye.

Poems (1832)

Heed not the night; a summer lodge amid the wild is mine —
'Tis shadowed by the tulip-tree, 'tis mantled by the vine.

The fiercest agonies have shortest reign;
And after dreams of horror, comes again
The welcome morning with its rays of peace.

Mutation. A Sonnet (1824)

Here the free spirit of mankind, at length,
Throws its last fetters off; and who shall place
A limit to the giant's unchained strength,
Or curb his swiftness in the forward race!

Poems (1832)

The summer morn is bright and fresh, the birds are darting by,
As if they loved to breast the breeze that sweeps the cool clear sky.

Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again;
The eternal years of God are hers;
But Error, wounded, writhes with pain,
And dies among his worshippers.

Thou unrelenting Past!
Strong are the barriers round thy dark domain,
And fetters, sure and fast,
Hold all that enter thy unbreathing reign.

Poems (1832)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: William Cullen Bryant (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.