Ay, call it holy ground,

The soil where first they trod:

They have left unstained what there they found,—
Freedom to worship God.

Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers.

Through the laburnum's dropping gold
Rose the light shaft of Orient mould,
And Europe's violets, faintly sweet,
Purpled the mossbeds at its feet.

They grew in beauty side by side,
They filled one home with glee:
Their graves are severed far and wide
By mount and stream and sea.

The Palm-Tree.

The Graves of a Household.

Alas for love, if thou wert all,

And naught beyond, O Earth!

The boy stood on the burning deck,
Whence all but him had fled;
The flame that lit the battle's wreck
Shone round him o'er the dead.

Leaves have their time to fall,

Ibid.

Casabianca.

And flowers to wither at the north-wind's breath,
An stars to set; but all,

Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death!

:

Come to the sunset tree!

The day is past and gone;

The woodman's axe lies free,
And the reaper's work is done.

In the busy haunts of men.

The Hour of Death.

Tyrolese Evening Song.

Tale of the Secret Tribunal. Parti

Calm on the bosom of thy God,
Fair spirit, rest thee now!

Siege of Valencia. Scene iz.

Oh, call my brother back to me!

I cannot play alone:

The summer comes with flower and bee, —
Where is my brother gone?

The Child's First Grief.

I have looked on the hills of the stormy North,
And the larch has hung his tassels forth.

The Voice of Spring.

When I am dead, no pageant train
Shall waste their sorrows at my bier,
Nor worthless pomp of homage vain
Stain it with hypocritic tear.

Ye shall not pile, with servile toil,
Your monuments upon my breast,

Nor yet within the common soil

Alaric the Visigoth.

Lay down the wreck of power to rest,
Where man can boast that he has trod
On him that was "the scourge of God."

But

ye the mountain-stream shall turn,
And lay its secret channel bare
And hollow, for your sovereign's urn,
A resting-place forever there.

Ibid.

7

No gilded dome swells from the lowly roof to catch the morning or evening beam; but the love and gratitude of united America settle upon it in one eternal sunshine. From beneath that humble roof went forth the intrepid and unselfish warrior, the magistrate who knew no glory but his country's good; to that he returned, happiest when his work was done. There he lived in noble simplicity, there he died in glory and peace. While it stands, the latest generations of the grateful children of America will make this pilgrimage

to it as to a shrine; and when it shall fall, if fall it must, the memory and the name of Washington shall shed an eternal glory on the spot.

Oration on the Character of Washington.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

1794-1878.

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?

The Ages. xxxiii,

Thanatopsis.

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

Go forth under the open sky, and list

The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom.

So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan which moves 1

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 that wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

1 The edition of 1821 read,

The innumerable caravan that moves

To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take.

Ibid.

Ibid

The groves were God's first temples.

The stormy March has come at last,

A Forest Hymn.

With winds and clouds and changing skies;

I hear the rushing of the blast

That through the snowy valley flies.

But 'neath yon crimson tree

March.

Lover to listening maid might breathe his flame,
Nor mark, within its roseate canopy,

Her blush of maiden shame.

Autumn Woods.

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

and sear.

And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no

When Freedom from her mountain-height
Unfurled her standard to the air,

She tore the azure robe of night,
And set the stars of glory there.
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes
The milky baldric of the skies,

And striped its pure, celestial white
With streakings of the morning light.

Flag of the free heart's hope and home!
By angel hands to valour given!
Thy stars have lit the welkin dome,

And all thy hues were born in heaven.
Forever float that standard sheet!

Where breathes the foe but falls before us,
With Freedom's soil beneath our feet,

And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us?

Lamia, Parti

Love in a hut, with water and a crust,

Is Love, forgive us! - cinders, ashes, dust.

There was an awful rainbow once in heaven:
We know her woof, her texture; she is given
In the dull catalogue of common things.
Philosophy will clip an angel's wings.