Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant Part 50

I pause and turn my eyes, and looking back Where that tumultuous flood has been, I see The silent ocean of the Past, a waste Of waters weltering over graves, its sh.o.r.es Strewn with the wreck of fleets where mast and hull Drop away piecemeal; battlemented walls Frown idly, green with moss, and temples stand Unroofed, forsaken by the wors.h.i.+pper.

There lie memorial stones, whence time has gnawed The graven legends, thrones of kings o'erturned, The broken altars of forgotten G.o.ds, Foundations of old cities and long streets Where never fall of human foot is heard, On all the desolate pavement. I behold Dim glimmerings of lost jewels, far within The sleeping waters, diamond, sardonyx, Ruby and topaz, pearl and chrysolite, Once glittering at the banquet on fair brows That long ago were dust, and all around Strewn on the surface of that silent sea Are withering bridal wreaths, and glossy locks Shorn from dear brows, by loving hands, and scrolls O'er written, haply with fond words of love And vows of friends.h.i.+p, and fair pages flung Fresh from the printer's engine. There they lie A moment, and then sink away from sight.

I look, and the quick tears are in my eyes, For I behold in every one of these A blighted hope, a separate history Of human sorrows, telling of dear ties Suddenly broken, dreams of happiness Dissolved in air, and happy days too brief That sorrowfully ended, and I think How painfully must the poor heart have beat In bosoms without number, as the blow Was struck that slew their hope and broke their peace.

Sadly I turn and look before, where yet The Flood must pa.s.s, and I behold a mist Where swarm dissolving forms, the brood of Hope, Divinely fair, that rest on banks of flowers, Or wander among rainbows, fading soon And reappearing, haply giving place To forms of grisly aspect such as Fear Shapes from the idle air--where serpents lift The head to strike, and skeletons stretch forth The bony arm in menace. Further on A belt of darkness seems to bar the way Long, low, and distant, where the Life to come Touches the Life that is. The Flood of Years Rolls toward it near and nearer. It must pa.s.s That dismal barrier. What is there beyond?

Hear what the wise and good have said. Beyond That belt of darkness, still the Years roll on More gently, but with not less mighty sweep.

They gather up again and softly bear All the sweet lives that late were overwhelmed And lost to sight, all that in them was good, n.o.ble, and truly great, and worthy of love-- The lives of infants and ingenuous youths, Sages and saintly women who have made Their households happy; all are raised and borne By that great current in its onward sweep, Wandering and rippling with caressing waves Around green islands with the breath Of flowers that never wither. So they pa.s.s From stage to stage along the s.h.i.+ning course Of that bright river, broadening like a sea.

As its smooth eddies curl along their way They bring old friends together; hands are clasped In joy unspeakable; the mother's arms Again are folded round the child she loved And lost. Old sorrows are forgotten now, Or but remembered to make sweet the hour That overpays them; wounded hearts that bled Or broke are healed forever. In the room Of this grief-shadowed present, there shall be A Present in whose reign no grief shall gnaw The heart, and never shall a tender tie Be broken; in whose reign the eternal Change That waits on growth and action shall proceed With everlasting Concord hand in hand.

OUR FELLOW-WORs.h.i.+PPERS.

Think not that thou and I Are here the only wors.h.i.+ppers to day, Beneath this glorious sky, Mid the soft airs that o'er the meadows play; These airs, whose breathing stirs The fresh gra.s.s, are our fellow-wors.h.i.+ppers.

See, as they pa.s.s, they swing The censers of a thousand flowers that bend O'er the young herbs of spring, And the sweet odors like a prayer ascend, While, pa.s.sing thence, the breeze Wakes the grave anthem of the forest-trees.

It is as when, of yore, The Hebrew poet called the mountain-steeps, The forests, and the sh.o.r.e Of ocean, and the mighty mid-sea deeps, And stormy wind, to raise A universal symphony of praise.

For, lo! the hills around, Gay in their early green, give silent thanks; And, with a joyous sound, The streamlet's huddling waters kiss their banks, And, from its sunny nooks, To heaven, with grateful smiles, the valley looks.

The blossomed apple-tree, Among its flowery tufts, on every spray, Offers the wandering bee A fragrant chapel for his matin-lay; And a soft ba.s.s is heard From the quick pinions of the humming-bird.

Haply--for who can tell?-- Aerial beings, from the world unseen, Haunting the sunny dell, Or slowly floating o'er the flowery green, May join our wors.h.i.+p here, With harmonies too fine for mortal ear.

NOTES.

Page 11.

POEM OF THE AGES.

In this poem, written and first printed in the year 1821, the author has endeavored, from a survey of the past ages of the world, and of the successive advances of mankind in knowledge, virtue, and happiness, to justify and confirm the hopes of the philanthropist for the future destinies of the human race.

Page 34.

THE BURIAL-PLACE.

The first half of this fragment may seem to the reader borrowed from the essay on Rural Funerals in the fourth number of "The Sketch-book." The lines were, however, written more than a year before that number appeared. The poem, unfinished as it is, would hardly have been admitted into this collection, had not the author been unwilling to lose what had the honor of resembling so beautiful a composition.

Page 43.

THE Ma.s.sACRE AT SCIO.

This poem, written about the time of the horrible butchery of the Sciotes by the Turks, in 1824, has been more fortunate than most poetical predictions. The independence of the Greek nation which it foretold, has come to pa.s.s, and the ma.s.sacre, by inspiring a deeper detestation of their oppressors, did much to promote that event.

Page 44.

_Her maiden veil, her own black hair_, etc.

"The unmarried females have a modest falling down of the hair over the eyes."--ELIOT.

Page 63.

MONUMENT MOUNTAIN.

The mountain called by this name is a remarkable precipice in Great Barrington, overlooking the rich and picturesque valley of the Housatonic, in the western part of Ma.s.sachusetts. At the southern extremity is, or was a few years since, a conical pile of small stones, erected, according to the tradition of the surrounding country, by the Indians, in memory of a woman of the Stockbridge tribe who killed herself by leaping from the edge of the precipice. Until within a few years past, small parties of that tribe used to arrive from their settlement in the western part of the State of New York, on visits to Stockbridge, the place of their nativity and former residence. A young woman belonging to one of these parties related, to a friend of the author, the story on which the poem of Monument Mountain is founded. An Indian girl had formed an attachment for her cousin, which, according to the customs of the tribe, was unlawful. She was, in consequence, seized with a deep melancholy, and resolved to destroy herself. In company with a female friend, she repaired to the mountain, decked out for the occasion in all her ornaments, and, after pa.s.sing the day on the summit in singing with her companion the traditional songs of her nation, she threw herself headlong from the rock, and was killed.

Page 78.

THE MURDERED TRAVELLER.

Some years since, in the month of May, the remains of a human body, partly devoured by wild animals, were found in a woody ravine, near a solitary road pa.s.sing between the mountains west of the village of Stockbridge. It was supposed that the person came to his death by violence, but no traces could be discovered of his murderers. It was only recollected that one evening, in the course of the previous winter, a traveller had stopped at an inn in the village of West Stockbridge: that he had inquired the way to Stockbridge; and that, in paying the innkeeper for something he had ordered, it appeared that he had a considerable sum of money in his possession. Two ill-looking men were present, and went out about the same time that the traveller proceeded on his journey. During the winter, also, two men of shabby appearance, but plentifully supplied with money, had lingered for a while about the village of Stockbridge. Several years afterward, a criminal, about to be executed for a capital offence in Canada, confessed that he had been concerned in murdering a traveller in Stockbridge for the sake of his money. Nothing was ever discovered respecting the name or residence of the person murdered.

Page 101.

_Chained in the market-place he stood_, etc.

The story of the African chief, related in this ballad, may be found in the _African Repository_ for April, 1825. The subject of it was a warrior of majestic stature, the brother of Yarradee, king of the Solima nation. He had been taken in battle, and was brought in chains for sale to the Rio Pongas, where he was exhibited in the market-place, his ankles still adorned with ma.s.sy rings of gold which he wore when captured. The refusal of his captors to listen to his offers of ransom drove him mad, and he died a maniac.

Page 111.

THE CONJUNCTION OF JUPITER AND VENUS.

This conjunction was said in the common calendars to have taken place on the 2d of August, 1826. This, I believe, was an error, but the apparent approach of the planets was sufficiently near for poetical purposes.

Page 116.

THE HURRICANE.

This poem is nearly a translation from one by Jose Maria de Heredia, a native of the island of Cuba, who published at New York, about the year 1825, a volume of poems in the Spanish language.

Page 118.

WILLIAM TELL.

Neither this, nor any of the other sonnets in the collection, with the exception of the one from the Portuguese, is framed according to the legitimate Italian model, which, in the author's opinion, possesses no peculiar beauty for an ear accustomed only to the metrical forms of our own language. The sonnets in this collection are rather poems in fourteen lines than sonnets.