William Cullen Bryant

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

Nothing can be more striking to one who is accustomed to the little inclosures called public parks in our American cities, than the spacious, open grounds of London. I doubt, in fact, whether any person fully comprehends their extent, from any of the ordinary descriptions of them, until he has seen them or tried to walk over them.

A herd of prairie-wolves will enter a field of melons and quarrel about the division of the spoils as fiercely and noisily as so many politicians.

The birch-bark canoe of the savage seems to me one of the most beautiful and perfect things of the kind constructed by human art.

A beautiful city is Richmond, seated on the hills that overlook the James River. The dwellings have a pleasant appearance, often standing by themselves in the midst of gardens. In front of several, I saw large magnolias, their dark, glazed leaves glittering in the March sunshine.

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

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

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

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

The Parisian has his amusements as regularly as his meals, the theatre, music, the dance, a walk in the Tuilleries, a refection in the cafe, to which ladies resort as commonly as the other sex. Perpetual business, perpetual labor, is a thing of which he seems to have no idea.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Eloquence is the poetry of prose.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

The groves were God's first temples.

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