""Hope" is the thing with feathers – That perches in the soul – And sings the tune without the words – And never stops – at all – And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard – And sore must be the storm – That could abash the little Bird That kept so many warm – I've heard it in the chillest land – And on the strangest Sea – Yet – never – in Extremity, It asked a crumb – of me."

"Heart, we will forget him! You and I, to-night! You may forget the warmth he gave, I will forget the light.When you have done, pray tell me, That I my thoughts may dim; Haste! lest while you're lagging, I may remember him!"

"Glee! the great storm is over! Four have recovered the land; Forty gone down together Into the boiling sand.Ring, for the scant salvation! Toll, for the bonnie souls,— Neighbor and friend and bridegroom, Spinning upon the shoals!How they will tell the shipwreck When winter shakes the door, Till the children ask, "But the forty? Did they come back no more?"Then a silence suffuses the story, And a softness the teller's eye; And the children no further question, And only the waves reply."

"Fate slew him, but he did not drop; She felled—he did not fall— Impaled him on her fiercest stakes— He neutralized them all.She stung him, sapped his firm advance, But, when her worst was done, And he, unmoved, regarded her, Acknowledged him a man."

"Fame is a fickle food Upon a shifting plate, Whose table once a Guest, but not The second time, is set. Whose crumbs the crows inspect, And with ironic caw Flap past it to the Farmer’s corn; Men eat of it and die."

""Faith" is a fine invention When Gentlemen can see – But Microscopes are prudent In an Emergency."

"What fortitude the Soul contains, That it can so endure The accent of a coming Foot - The opening of a Door -"

"Drowning is not so pitiful As the attempt to rise. Three times, 'tis said, a sinking man Comes up to face the skies, And then declines forever To that abhorred abodeWhere hope and he part company,— For he is grasped of God. The Maker’s cordial visage, However good to see, Is shunned, we must admit it, Like an adversity."

"Dreams – are well – but Waking's better, If One wake at Morn – If One wake at Midnight – better – Dreaming – of the Dawn –"

"Bless God, he went as soldiers, His musket on his breast; Grant, God, he charge the bravest Of all the martial blest.Please God, might I behold him In epauletted white, I should not fear the foe then, I should not fear the fight."

"Since then – 'tis Centuries – and yet Feels shorter than the Day I first surmised the Horses' Heads Were toward Eternity –"

"We passed the School, where Children strove At Recess – in the Ring –"

"Because I could not stop for Death – He kindly stopped for me – The Carriage held but just Ourselves – And Immortality.We slowly drove – He knew no haste And I had put away My labor and my leisure too, For His Civility –"

"This is the Hour of Lead - Remembered, if outlived, As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow - First - Chill - then Stupor - then the letting go -"

"After great pain, a formal feeling comes - The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs - The stiff Heart questions 'was it He, that bore,' And 'Yesterday, or Centuries before'?"

"A solemn thing - it was - I said - A Woman - white - to be - And wear - if God should count me fit - Her blameless mystery -"

"A little Madness in the Spring Is wholesome even for the King."

"A death-blow is a life-blow to some Who, till they died, did not alive become; Who, had they lived, had died, but when They died, vitality begun."

"A Grave – is a restricted Breadth – Yet ampler than the Sun – And all the Seas He populates And lands he looks uponTo Him who on its small Repose Bestows a single Friend – Circumference without Relief – Or Estimate – or End –"

"No approximate words in a poem."

"We turn not older with years, but newer every day."

"To live is so startling, it leaves but little room for other occupations."

"If I read a book [and] it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?"

"I had no portrait, now, but am small, like the Wren, and my Hair is bold, like the Chestnut Bur — and my eyes, like the Sherry in the Glass, that the Guest leaves — Would this do just as well?"

"My friends are my "estate." Forgive me then the avarice to hoard them."

"Friday I tasted life. It was a vast morsel. A circus passed the house — still I feel the red in my mind though the drums are out. [...] The lawn is full of south and the odors tangle, and I hear to-day for the first the river in the tree."

"God is sitting here, looking into my very soul to see if I think right thoughts. Yet I am not afraid, for I try to be right and good; and He knows every one of my struggles."

"Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste."

"The stormy March has come at last, With winds and clouds and changing skies; I hear the rushing of the blast That through the snowy valley flies."

"[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."

"There is something in this universe which justifies William Cullen Bryant in saying Truth crushed to earth will rise again."

"So live, that when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan which moves 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 who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams."

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

"The hills, Rock-ribbed, and ancient as the sun."

"Go forth under the open sky, and list To Nature's teachings."

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

"The right to discuss freely and openly, by speech, by the pen, by the press, all political questions, and to examine and 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 at once into depression or anarchy. To say that he who holds unpopular opinions must hold them at the peril of his life, and that, if he expresses them in public, he has only himself to blame if they who disagree with him should rise and put him to death, is to strike at all rights, all liberties, all protection of the laws, and to justify and extenuate all crimes."

"Wild was the day; the wintry sea Moaned sadly on New England's strand, When first the thoughtful and the free, Our fathers, trod the desert land."

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

"Glorious are the woods in their latest gold and crimson, Yet our full-leaved willows are in the freshest green. Such a kindly autumn, so mercifully dealing With the growths of summer, I never yet have seen."

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

"These struggling tides of life that seem In wayward, aimless course to tend, Are eddies of the mighty stream That rolls to its appointed end."

"I would make Reason my guide, but she should sometimes sit Patiently by the way-side, while I traced The mazes of the pleasant wilderness Around me. She should be my counsellor, But not my tyrant. For the spirit needs Impulses from a deeper source than hers, And there are motions, in the mind of man, That she must look upon with awe. I bow Reverently to her dictates, but not less Hold to the fair illusions of old time — lllusions that shed brightness over life, And glory over nature."

"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."

"The victory of endurance born."

"When April winds Grew soft, the maple burst into a flush Of scarlet flowers. The tulip tree, high up, Opened in airs of June her multitude Of golden chalices to humming-birds And silken-wing'd insects of the sky."

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

"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."

"But ’neath yon crimson tree Lover to listening maid might breathe his flame, Nor mark, within its roseate canopy, Her blush of maiden shame."

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