William C. Bryant

Poetry is that art which selects and arranges the symbols of thought in such a manner as to excite the imagination the most powerfully and delightfully.

The little windflower, whose just opened eye is blue as the spring heaven it gazes at.

Winning isn’t everything, but it beats anything in second place.

A sculptor wields The chisel, and the stricken marble grows To beauty.

Thine eyes are springs in whose serene And silent waters heaven is seen. Their lashes are the herbs that look On their young figures in the brook.

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

Loveliest of lovely things are they on earth that soonest pass away. The rose that lives its little hour is prized beyond the sculptured flower.

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

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

There is no glory in star or blossom till looked upon by a loving eye; There is no fragrance in April breezes till breathed with joy as they wander by.

Pain dies quickly, and lets her weary prisoners go; the fiercest agonies have shortest reign.

Weep not that the world changes – did it keep a stable, changeless state, it were cause indeed to weep.

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

The moon is at her full, and riding high, Floods the calm fields with light. The airs that hover in the summer sky Are all asleep tonight.

Where hast thou wandered. gentle gale, to find the perfumes thou dost bring?

Difficulty, my brethren, is the nurse of greatness – a harsh nurse, who roughly rocks her foster – children into strength and athletic proportion.

A stable, changeless state, ’twere cause indeed to weep.

The February sunshine steeps your boughs and tints the buds and swells the leaves within.

Truth gets well if she is run over by a locomotive, while error dies of lockjaw if she scratches her finger.

The groves were God’s first temples.

Eloquence is the poetry of prose.

Remorse is virtue’s root; its fair increase are fruits of innocence and blessedness.