Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant. Bryant William Cullen

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      Soon as the glazed and gleaming snow

      Reflects the day-dawn cold and clear,

      The hunter of the West must go

      In depth of woods to seek the deer.

      His rifle on his shoulder placed,

      His stores of death arranged with skill,

      His moccasins and snow-shoes laced —

      Why lingers he beside the hill?

      Far, in the dim and doubtful light,

      Where woody slopes a valley leave,

      He sees what none but lover might,

      The dwelling of his Genevieve.

      And oft he turns his truant eye,

      And pauses oft, and lingers near;

      But when he marks the reddening sky,

      He bounds away to hunt the deer.

      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 seen against 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 has 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.

      When breezes are soft and skies are fair,

      I steal an hour from study and care,

      And hie me away to the woodland scene,

      Where wanders the stream with waters of green,

      As if the bright fringe of herbs on its brink

      Had given their stain to the waves they drink;

      And they, whose meadows it murmurs through,

      Have named the stream from its own fair hue.

      Yet pure its waters – its shallows are bright

      With colored pebbles and sparkles of light,

      And clear the depths where its eddies play,

      And dimples deepen and whirl away,

      And the plane-tree's speckled arms o'ershoot

      The swifter current that mines its root,

      Through whose shifting leaves, as you walk the hill,

      The quivering glimmer of sun and rill

      With a sudden flash on the eye is thrown,

      Like the ray that streams from the diamond-stone.

      Oh, loveliest there the spring days come,

      With blossoms, and birds, and wild-bees' hum;

      The flowers of summer are fairest there,

      And freshest the breath of the summer air;

      And sweetest the golden autumn day

      In silence and sunshine glides away.

      Yet, fair as thou art, thou shunnest to glide,

      Beautiful stream! by the village side;

      But windest away from haunts of men,

      To quiet valley and shaded glen;

      And forest, and meadow, and slope of hill,

      Around thee, are lonely, lovely, and still,

      Lonely – save when, by thy rippling tides,

      From thicket to thicket the angler glides;

      Or the simpler comes, with basket and book,

      For herbs of power on thy banks to look;

      Or haply, some idle dreamer, like me,

      To wander, and muse, and gaze on thee,

      Still – save the chirp of birds that feed

      On the river cherry and seedy reed,

      And thy own wild music gushing out

      With mellow murmur of fairy shout,

      From dawn to the blush of another day,

      Like traveller singing along his way.

      That fairy music I never hear,

      Nor gaze on those waters so green and clear,

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