And pass the prairie-hawk that, poised on high, Flaps his broad wings, yet moves not-ye have played Of Texas, and have crisped the limpid brooks A nobler or a lovelier scene than this? The following stanzas form part of his poem, entitled, The Battle-field: Soon rested those who fought; but thou, Who minglest in the harder strife Yet nerve thy spirit to the proof, And blench not at thy chosen lot. The timid good may stand aloof, The sage may frown-yet faint thou not. Nor heed the shaft too surely cast, The foul and hissing bolt of scorn; Then follows the oft-cited, magnificent verse,— Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again; But Error, wounded, writhes with pain, The Hunter of the Prairies is another fine poem : Ay, this is freedom!-these pure skies """What plant we with this apple tree? Sweets for a hundred flowery springs To load the May wind's restless wings, When, from the orchard row, he pourt Its fragrance through our open doors. I world of blossoms for the bee, Filavers for the sick girl's selent room, For the glad infant sprigs of blooms We plant with the apple trees" William Cullen Bryant Roslyn, L. J. Inly 120 18775= The bounung elk, whose antlers tear From the long stripe of waving sedge; Of vines, as huge, and old, and gray! Another of Mr. Bryant's most admired productions is his Forest Hymn, commencing: The groves were God's first temples. 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, Amid the cool and silence, he knelt down, Which, from the stilly twilight of the place, And from the gray old trunks that high in heaven |