THE WINDS. BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. YE winds, ye unseen currents of the air, Softly ye play'd a few brief hours ago; O'er maiden cheeks, that took a fresher glow; Ye roll'd the round, white cloud through depths of blue; Light blossoms, dropping on the grass like snow. To scape your wrath; ye seize and dash them dead. Against the earth ye drive the roaring rain; The harvest field becomes a river's bed; Ye dart upon the deep, and straight is heard Flings o'er his shivering plumes the fountain's spray. 12* (137) 138 THE WINDS. See! to the breaking mast the sailor clings; And pile the wreck of navies round the bay. Why rage ye thus ?-no strife for liberty Has made you mad; no tyrant, strong through fear, Has chain'd your pinions, till ye wrench'd them free, And rush'd into the unmeasured atmosphere: For ye were born in freedom where ye blow; O, ye wild winds! a mightier power than yours Yet, O, when that wrong'd spirit of our race, Lord of his ancient hills and fruitful plains, Unconscious breast with blood from human veins. But may be, like the spring-time, come abroad, Come spouting up the unseal'd springs to light; EXCELSIOR. Flowers start from their dark prisons at his feet, 139 EXCELSIOR. BY HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. THE shades of night were falling fast, His brow was sad: his eye beneath And like a silver clarion rung, The accents of that unknown tongue, In happy homes he saw the light "Try not the pass!" the old man said; 140 EXCELSIOR. "O stay," the maiden said, “and rest "Beware the pine-tree's wither'd branch! This was the peasant's last good-night; At break of day, as heavenward A voice cried through the startled air, A traveler, by the faithful hound, Still grasping in his hand of ice There, in the twilight cold and gray, And from the sky, serene and far, THE EXILE AT REST. BY JOHN PIERPONT. His falchion flash'd along the Nile; His hosts he led through Alpine snows; O'er Moscow's towers, that shook the while, His eagle flag unroll'd—and froze. Here sleeps he now alone: not one Of all the kings whose crowns he gave, Here sleeps he now alone: the star That led him on from crown to crown Hath sunk; the nations from afar Gazed as it faded and went down. He sleeps alone: the mountain cloud That night hangs round him, and the breath Of morning scatters, is the shroud That wraps his martial form in death. High is his couch: the ocean flood Hark! Comes there from the Pyramids, And from Siberia's wastes of snow, And Europe's fields, a voice that bids The world he awed to mourn him? No: The only, the perpetual dirge That's heard there is the sea-bird's cry, The mournful murmur of the surge, The cloud's deep voice, the wind's low sigh. |