Volume 1 / Part 1 / Act 2 — WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
Reading edition
Thanatopsis.
To him who in the love of Nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language.
Go forth, under the open sky, and list To Nature's teachings.
Sustained and soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, Like one that wraps the drapery of his couch. About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
March.
The stormy March has come at last, With wind and clouds and changing skies; I hear the rushing of the blast That through the snowy valley flies.
Autumn Woods.
But 'neath yon crimson tree, Lover to listening maid might breathe his flame, Nor mark, within its roseate canopy, Her blush of maiden shame.
Forest Hymn.
The groves were God's first temples.
The Death of the Flowers.
The melancholy days are come, The saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, And meadows brown and sear.
The Battlefield.
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.