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[Thanatopsis] was written in 1817, when Bryant was 23. Had he died then, the world would have thought it had lost a great poet. But he lived on.

William C. Bryant

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William C. Bryant
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More quotes by William C. Bryant

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So they, who climb to wealth, forget The friends in darker fortunes tried. I copied them--but I regret That I should ape the ways of pride.
William C. Bryant
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Ah, never shall the land forget How gush'd the life-blood of the brave, Gush'd warm with hope and courage yet, Upon the soil they fought to save!
William C. Bryant
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It is a sultry day the sun has drunk The dew that lay upon the morning grass There is no rustling in the lofty elm That canopies my dwelling, and its shade Scarce cools me. All is silent, save the faint And interrupted murmur of the bee, Settling on the sick flowers, And then again Instantly on the wing.
William C. Bryant
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Your peaks are beautiful, ye Apennines! In the soft light of these serenest skies From the broad highland region, black with pines, Fair as the hills of Paradise they rise, Bathed in the tint Peruvian slaves behold In rosy flushes on the virgin gold.
William C. Bryant
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The right to discuss freely and openly, by speech, by the pen, by the press, all political questions, and to examine the animadvert upon all political institutions is a right so clear and certain, so interwoven with our other liberties, so necessary, in fact, to their existence, that without it we must fall into despotism and anarchy.
William C. Bryant
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Christ taught an astonishing thing about physical death: not merely that it is an experience robbed of its terror but that as an experience it does not exist at all. To sleep in Christ, like one that wraps the drapery of his couch about him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
William C. Bryant
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Heed not the night A summer lodge amid the wild is mine, 'Tis shadowed by the tulip-tree, 'Tis mantled by the vine.
William C. Bryant
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Oh, river! darkling river! what a voice Is that thou utterest while all else is still-- The ancient voice that, centuries ago, Sounded between thy hills, while Rome was yet A weedy solitude by Tiber's stream!
William C. Bryant
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Fairest of all that earth beholds, the hues That live among the clouds, and flush the air, Lingering, and deepening at the hour of dews.
William C. Bryant
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I gazed upon the glorious sky And the green mountains round, And thought that when I came to lie At rest within the ground, 'Twere pleasant, that in flowery June When brooks send up a cheerful tune, And groves a joyous sound, The sexton's hand, my grave to make, The rich, green mountain-turf should break.
William C. Bryant
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Father, thy hand Hath reared these venerable columns, thou Didst weave this verdant roof. Thou didst look down Upon the naked earth, and, forthwith, rose All these fair ranks of trees. They, in thy sun, Budded, and shook their green leaves in thy breeze, And shot towards heaven.
William C. Bryant
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Flowers spring up unsown and die ungathered.
William C. Bryant
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A sculptor wields The chisel, and the stricken marble grows To beauty.
William C. Bryant
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On my cornice linger the ripe black grapes ungathered Children fill the groves with the echoes of their glee, Gathering tawny chestnuts, and shouting when beside them Drops the heavy fruit of the tall black-walnut tree.
William C. Bryant
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Error's monstrous shapes from earth are driven They fade, they fly--but truth survives the flight.
William C. Bryant
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A herd of prairie-wolves will enter a field of melons and quarrel about the division of the spoils as fiercely and noisily as so many politicians.
William C. Bryant
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Eloquence is the poetry of prose.
William C. Bryant
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Ah! never shall the land forget How gushed the life-blood of her brave -
William C. Bryant
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And suns grow meek, and the meek suns grow brief, and the year smiles as it draws near its death.
William C. Bryant
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The groves were God's first temple. Ere man learned To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave, And spread the roof above them,--ere he framed The lofty vault, to gather and roll back The sound of anthems in the darkling wood, Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks And supplication.
William C. Bryant