Selections from the American Poets, Nummer 111

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Harper, 1848 - 316 pagina's
 

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Pagina 286 - He was chubby and plump ; a right jolly old elf; And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself. A wink of his eye, and a twist of his head, Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread. He spoke not a word but went straight to his work, And filled all the stockings ; then turned with a jerk, And laying his finger aside of his nose, And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose. He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle, And away they all flew like the down of a thistle , But I heard him exclaim,...
Pagina 164 - And life, in rare and beautiful forms, Is sporting amid those bowers of stone, And is safe when the wrathful spirit of storms Has made the top of the wave his own.
Pagina 138 - Then the forms of the departed Enter at the open door ; The beloved, the true-hearted, Come to visit me once more; He, the young and strong, who cherished Noble longings for the strife, By the road-side fell and perished, Weary with the march of life! They, the holy ones and weakly...
Pagina 164 - From coral rocks the sea-plants lift Their boughs, where the tides and billows flow; The water is calm and still below. For the winds and waves are absent there, And the sands are bright as the stars that glow 'In the motionless fields of upper air: There, with its waving blade of green, The sea-flag streams through the silent water, And the crimson leaf of the dulse is seen To blush, like a banner bathed in slaughter...
Pagina 256 - The winds breathe low, the withering leaf Scarce whispers from the tree : So gently flows the parting breath, When good men cease to be.
Pagina 90 - She dwelt among the untrodden ways Beside the springs of Dove, A Maid whom there were none to praise And very few to love : A violet by a mossy stone Half hidden from the eye! Fair as a star, when only one Is shining in the sky.
Pagina 138 - And with them the Being Beauteous, Who unto my youth was given, Move than all things else to love me, And is now a saint in heaven. With a slow and noiseless footstep Comes that messenger divine, Takes the vacant chair beside me, Lays her gentle hand in mine.
Pagina 207 - Are they here The dead of other days? - and did the dust Of these fair solitudes once stir with life And burn with passion? Let the mighty mounds That overlook the rivers, or that rise In the dim forest crowded with old oaks, Answer.
Pagina 18 - Here still a lofty rock remains, On which the curious eye may trace (Now wasted, half, by wearing rains) The fancies of a ruder race.
Pagina 94 - The elfin cast a glance around, As he lighted down from his courser toad, Then round his breast his wings he wound, And close to the river's brink he strode ; He sprang on a rock, he breathed a prayer...

Over de auteur (1848)

Like so many successful New Yorkers during the nineteenth century, William C. Bryant was born and reared in New England. There, in his native Massachusetts, among the beautiful highlands of the Berkshires, he learned early to be a close observer of nature and a careful student of English versification. A child prodigy, he began to make rhymes before his tenth birthday, and in 1808 he gained some fame as the author of The Embargo, or Sketches of the Time, a satire in verse in which he echoed the conservative political sentiments of his elders. Soon, however, he found his own voice and point of view, and the poetry that followed, unlike so much of the literature that was being produced in the United States in the early decades of the nineteenth century, was considered by his contemporaries to be unmistakably American. During his own lifetime and since, his most famous poem has been "Thanatopsis" (from the Greek thanato and opsis, meaning "a meditation on death"), which was first published in the North American Review in 1817. Other poems, such as "Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood" (1817), "A Forest Hymn" (1825), and "To the Fringed Gentian" (1832), printed during the next several decades, brought him recognition both at home and abroad as the leading poet in the United States. Always solemn and stately, his verse seemed cold to James Russell Lowell, who humorously spoke of Bryant's "iceolation." But others praised Bryant for his careful artisanship, his commitment to romantic aesthetics, his celebration of nature, and his liberal faith in the historical destiny of the United States. Matthew Arnold called "To a Waterfowl" (1818) one of the finest short lyrics in the English language, and "The Prairies" (1833) and "Earth" (1835) have been seen as noble literary expressions "of the Jacksonian version of the American Dream." By training a lawyer and by profession a journalist, Bryant was editor-in-chief of the New York Evening Post from 1829 until his death in 1878. This position gave him enormous influence on national affairs, and his early support for the fledgling Republican party in the 1850s helped insure that party's success. When he was nearly 80 years old, he translated the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer into English blank verse. Bryant died in 1878.

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