Sophomore Honors
Fireside Poets Poetry Project
Name _____________________________
Date ______________________________
Period _____________________________
Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood
By: William Cullen Bryant
STRANGER, if thou hast learned a truth which needs
No school of long experience, that the world
Is full of guilt and misery, and hast seen
Enough of all its sorrows, crimes, and cares,
To tire thee of it, enter this wild wood
And view the haunts of nature.
The calm shade [s]hall bring a kindred calm, and the sweet breeze
That makes the green leaves dance, shall waft a balm
To thy sick heart.
Thou wilt find nothing here [o]f all that pained thee in the haunts of men,
And made thee loathe thy life.
The primal curse [f]ell, it is true, upon the unsinning earth, [b]ut not in vengeance.
God hath yoked to guilt [h]er pale tormentor, Misery.
Hence these shades [a]re still the abode of gladness; the thick roof
Of green and stirring branches is alive [a]nd musical with birds, that sing and sport
In wantonness of spirit; while below [t]he squirrel, with raised paws and form erect,
Chirps merrily.
Throngs of insects in the shade
Try their thin wings and dance in the warm beam
That waked them into life.
Even the green trees [p]artake the deep contentment; as they bend
To the soft winds, the sun from the blue sky
Looks in and sheds a blessing on the scene.
Scarce less the cleft-born wildflower seems to enjoy
Existence, than the winged plunderer
That sucks its sweets.
The mossy rocks themselves,
And the old and ponderous trunks of prostrate trees
That lead from knoll to knoll a causeway rude,
Or bridge the sunken brook, and their dark roots,
With all their roots upon them, twisting high,
Breathe fixed tranquility.
The rivulet [s]ends forth glad sounds, and tripping o'er its bed
Of pebbly sands, or leaping down the rocks
Seems, with continuous laughter, to rejoice
In its own being.
Softly tread the marge, [l]est from her midway perch thou scare the wren
That dips her bill in water.
The cool wind, [t]hat stirs the stream in play, shall come to thee,
Like one that loves thee, nor will let thee pass
Ungreeted, and shall give its light embrace.
Thanatopsis
By: William Cullen Bryant
TO HIM who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;—
Go forth under the open sky, and list
To Nature's teachings, while from all around—
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air—
Comes a still voice—Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix forever with the elements;
To be a brother to the insensible rock,
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.
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Yet not to thine eternal resting-place
Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world,—with kings,
The powerful of the earth,—the wise, the good,
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Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun; the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods—rivers that move
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In majesty, and the complaining brooks
That make the meadows green; and, poured round all,
Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste,—
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man! The golden sun,
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The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom.—Take the wings
Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound,
Save his own dashings,—yet the dead are there:
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep—the dead reign there alone.
So shalt thou rest; and what if thou withdraw
In silence from the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one as before will chase
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glide away, the sons of men,
The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man—
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side
By those, who in their turn shall follow them.
So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan which moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
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The Arsenal at Springfield
By: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
This is the Arsenal. From floor to ceiling,
Like a huge organ, rise the burnished arms;
But front their silent pipes no anthem pealing
Startles the villages with strange alarms.
Ah! what a sound will rise, how wild and dreary,
When the death-angel touches those swift keys
What loud lament and dismal Miserere
Will mingle with their awful symphonies
I hear even now the infinite fierce chorus,
The cries of agony, the endless groan,
Which, through the ages that have gone before us,
In long reverberations reach our own.
On helm and harness rings the Saxon hammer,
Through Cimbric forest roars the Norseman's song,
And loud, amid the universal clamor,
O'er distant deserts sounds the Tartar gong.
I hear the Florentine, who from his palace
Wheels out his battle-bell with dreadful din,
And Aztec priests upon their teocallis
Beat the wild war-drums made of serpent's skin;
The tumult of each sacked and burning village;
The shout that every prayer for mercy drowns;
The soldiers' revels in the midst of pillage;
The wail of famine in beleaguered towns;
The bursting shell, the gateway wrenched asunder,
The rattling musketry, the clashing blade;
And ever and anon, in tones of thunder,
The diapason of the cannonade.
Is it, O man, with such discordant noises,
With such accursed instruments as these,
Thou drownest Nature's sweet and kindly voices,
And jarrest the celestial harmonies?
Were half the power, that fills the world with terror,
Were half the wealth, bestowed on camps and courts,
Given to redeem the human mind from error,
There were no need of arsenals or forts:
The warrior's name would be a name abhorred!
And every nation, that should lift again
Its hand against a brother, on its forehead
Would wear forevermore the curse of Cain!
Down the dark future, through long generations,
The echoing sounds grow fainter and then cease;
And like a bell, with solemn, sweet vibrations,
I hear once more the voice of Christ say, "Peace!"
Peace! and no longer from its brazen portals
The blast of War's great organ shakes the skies!
But beautiful as songs of the immortals,
The holy melodies of love arise.
Nature
By: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Nature is a setting that fits equally well a comic or a mourning piece. In good
health, the air is a cordial of incredible virtue. Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles,
at twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special
good fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. I am glad to the brink of fear. In the
woods too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of
life, is always a child. In the woods, is perpetual youth. Within these plantations of God,
a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how
he should tire of them in a thousand years. In the woods, we return to reason and faith.
There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, -- no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my
eyes,) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, -- my head bathed by the
blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, -- all mean egotism vanishes. I become a
transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate
through me; I am part or particle of God. The name of the nearest friend sounds then
foreign and accidental: to be brothers, to be acquaintances, -- master or servant, is then a
trifle and a disturbance. I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty. In the
wilderness, I find something more dear and connate than in streets or villages. In the
tranquil landscape, and especially in the distant line of the horizon, man beholds
somewhat as beautiful as his own nature.
The greatest delight which the fields and woods minister, is the suggestion of an
occult relation between man and the vegetable. I am not alone and unacknowledged.
They nod to me, and I to them. The waving of the boughs in the storm, is new to me and
old. It takes me by surprise, and yet is not unknown. Its effect is like that of a higher
thought or a better emotion coming over me, when I deemed I was thinking justly or
doing right.
Yet it is certain that the power to produce this delight, does not reside in nature,
but in man, or in a harmony of both. It is necessary to use these pleasures with great
temperance. For, nature is not always tricked in holiday attire, but the same scene which
yesterday breathed perfume and glittered as for the frolic of the nymphs, is overspread
with melancholy today. Nature always wears the colors of the spirit. To a man laboring
under calamity, the heat of his own fire hath sadness in it. Then, there is a kind of
contempt of the landscape felt by him who has just lost by death a dear friend. The sky is
less grand as it shuts down over less worth in the population.
The Chambered Nautilus
By: Oliver Wendell Holmes
This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sail the unshadowed main,-The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.
Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
And every chambered cell,
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed,-Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!
Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil;
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year's dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.
Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering sea,
Cast from her lap, forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn;
While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:-Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!
Old Ironsides
By: Oliver Wendell Holmes
Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!
Long has it waved on high,
And many an eye has danced to see
That banner in the sky;
Beneath it rung the battle shout,
And burst the cannon’s roar; —
The meteor of the ocean air
Shall sweep the clouds no more.
Her deck, once red with heroes’ blood,
Where knelt the vanquished foe,
When winds were hurrying o’er the flood,
And waves were white below,
No more shall feel the victor’s tread,
Or know the conquered knee; —
The harpies of the shore shall pluck
The eagle of the sea!
Oh, better that her shattered hulk
Should sink beneath the wave;
Her thunders shook the mighty deep,
And there should be her grave;
Nail to the mast her holy flag,
Set every threadbare sail,
And give her to the god of storms,
The lightning and the gale!