Page:Poetical works of William Cullen Bryant (IA poeticalworksof00brya).pdf/39

 Are spread, where'er the moist earth drinks the day,
 Forget the ancient care that taught and nursed
 His latest offspring? will he quench the ray
 Infused by his own forming smile at first,
And leave a work so fair all blighted and accursed?

VIII.

 Oh, no! a thousand cheerful omens give
 Hope of yet happier days, whose dawn is nigh.
 He who has tamed the elements, shall not live
 The slave of his own passions; he whose eye
 Unwinds the eternal dances of the sky,
 And in the abyss of brightness dares to span
 The sun's broad circle, rising yet more high,
 In God's magnificent works his will shall scan-
And love and peace shall make their paradise with man.

IX.

 Sit at the feet of History—through the night
 Of years the steps of virtue she shall trace.
 And show the earlier ages, where her sight
 Can pierce the eternal shadows o'er their face;—
 When, from the genial cradle of our race,
 Went forth tribes of men, their pleasant lot
 To choose, where palm-groves cooled their dwelling-place,
 Or freshening rivers ran; and there forgot
The truth of heaven, and kneeled to gods that heard them not.

X.

 Then waited not the murderer for the night,
 But smote his brother down in the bright day.
 And he who felt the wrong, and had the might,
 His own avenger, girt himself to slay;