The Gentle Race Of Flowers

War, Like All Other Situations Of Danger And Of Change, Calls Forth The Exertion Of Admirable Intellectual Qualities And Great Virtues, And It Is Only By Dwelling On These, And Keeping Out Of Sight The Sufferings And Sorrows, And All The Crimes And Evils That Follow In Its Train, That It Has Its Glory In The Eyes Of Men.

[thanatopsis] Was Written In 1817, When Bryant Was 23. Had He Died Then, The World Would Have Thought It Had Lost A Great Poet. But He Lived On.

Glorious Are The Woods In Their Latest Gold And Crimson.

On Rolls The Stream With A Perpetual Sigh; The Rocks Moan Wildly As It Passes By; Hyssop And Wormwood Border All The Strand, And Not A Flower Adorns The Dreary Land.

So They, Who Climb To Wealth, Forget The Friends In Darker Fortunes Tried. I Copied Them--but I Regret That I Should Ape The Ways Of Pride.