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Tiffany James

Dr. Clark

Ecopoetry

28 March 2013

Research Paper

William Cullen Bryant was born on November 3, 1794 in a log cabin near Cummington,

Massachusetts. He was the son of Peter Bryant, a doctor and later a state legislator, and Sarah

Snell. They both were descendants of passengers from the Mayflower. Due to his living his life

in and around nature, he was inspired from a very young age. According to William Leonard,

Assistant Professor of English in the University of Wisconsin, “Bryant’s was a boyhood and

youth among the virginal woods, hils, and streams, among a farmer folk and country labours and

pastimes,” this gives evidence to why he wrote about nature.Bryant was considered to be a child

prodigy and published his first poem at the ripe age of ten. He later published his first book at the

age of thirteen. Bryant wrote for many years and during those years he formed a distinct style of

writing which I will explore while explicating several of his poems.

Bryant’s poem “The Hurricane”, published in 1854, starts off with, “lord of the winds! I

feel thee nigh,/ I know thy breath in the burning sky!” What Bryant is saying is that he can feel

the beginning of the hurricane and he can see it in the sky because when a storm approaches the

sky changes colors. In the same stanza he writes, “and I wait, with a thrill in every vein,/ for the

coming of the hurricane!” With this revelation that the hurricane is coming, Bryant feels this

overwhelming sense of anticipation for it got where it’s going and for him to see it. Bryant then

goes on to describe the different attributes of the storm, “and lo! On the wing of the heavy gales,/

through the boundless arch of heaven he sails.” These lines express that the hurricane seems to

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be something of a unearthly mystery, and they seem to be compared to angles that glide around.

Then the next few lines, “silent and slow, and terribly strong,/ the mighty shadow is borne

along,/ like the dark eternity to come,” give more detail of the storm. The lines give the reader a

sense of that as the storm moves closer without notice and at a steady speed it gives off a

forewarning shadow. However, the lines could also have another meaning, depending on how

you look at it. A reader could read these lines and instead of seeing a horrible hurricane coming,

they see the lines foreshadowing what is to become of their lives in the future. Then the lines,

“while the world below, dismayed and dumb,/ through the calm of the thick hot atmosphere/

looks up at its gloomy folds with fear,” start to give the reader an idea of how the narrator feels.

They also tell the reader that the people who are about to feel the effects of the hurricane are so

much in shock that they can do nothing but stare and wait for the hurricane to reach them.

Then the lines, “they darken fast; and the golden blaze/ of the sun is quenched in the lurid

haze,” talk about how the storm is so vast and menacing that it covers the sky blocking out the

sun. But he does leave the people a slight ray of light,

“and he sends through the shade a funeral ray-

a glare that is neither night nor day,

a beam that touches, with hues of death,

the clouds above and the earth beneath.”

However, this light isn’t a ray of hope that all will be well, but a warning of the destruction and

collapse to come. With this light can be seen a bird flying in the sky, but you don’t hear its

normal tweeting due to the noise of the impending storm that instead causes the trees in the

forest to sway and moan. The narrator then lets the reader know that the storm is now visible, “he

is come! He is come! Do ye not behold/ his ample robes on the wind unrolled?” The second line

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also produces vivid images of the storm unfurling and spanning as far as the eye can see like

robes opened up blocking the view of anything but it.

The imagery in the fifth stanza allows the reader to experience what the narrator is

experiencing, “darker – still darker! The whirlwinds bear/ the dust of the plains to the middle

air.” The reader can hear the sounds of the storm as if it were around them, “and hark to the

crashing, long and loud,/ of the chariot of God in the thunder-cloud!” Bryant then goes on to

compare the flashes of light during the storm to the sparks flying off of God’s chariot,

“you may trace its path by the flashes that start

from the rapid wheels where’er they dart,

as the fire-bolts leap to the world below,

and flood the skies with a lurid glow.”

Then the storm truly starts, “what roar is that? – ‘tis the rain that breaks/ in torrents away from

the airy lakes,” and everyone can feel the splash of water waking them from their shock to see

the horror all around them. The storm grows to the point that the landscape can no longer be

seen, “well known woods, and mountains, and skies,/ with the very clouds! – ye are lost to my

eyes.” All that can be seen is a wall of water heading toward them and that has already taken

everything before them to a watery grave. Bryant ends the poem saying, “and I, cut off from the

world, remain/ alone with the terrible hurricane.” These ending lines give the feeling that

everyone and everything is gone but the narrator, however they can also mean that the storm is

so imposing and massive that the narrator feels as if it is alone with the hurricane.

“Bryant has been criticized as having been focused too much on death”, said John

McDonnell. The poem “The Hurricane”, explicated above and the poem “The Death of the

Flowers,” are examples of that focus. Bryant starts off “The Death of the Flowers” with, “the

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melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,/ of wailing winds, and naked woods, and

meadows brown and sere.” The first two lines automatically produce imagery so profound that

the reader can imagine that they can hear the feel, hear, and see everything that is going on. It

also foreshadows that the poem will be a sad and depressing one. The next two lines start to

produce the image of death that Bryant wanted, “heaped in the hallows of the grove, the autumn

leaves lie dead;/ they rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit’s tread.” The next lines, “the

robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay,/ and from the wood-top calls the crow

through all the gloomy day,” give the impression that things are a miss because the birds that

people associated with life are leaving and the crow that is associated with death has come. He

then ponders about the flowers that have not arrived yet, “where are the flowers, the fair young

flowers, that lately sprang and stood/ in brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood?”

Bryant then reveals what has become of the flowers, “alas! They all are in their graves, the gentle

race of flowers/ are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours.” The flowers are

dead and have no chance of coming back to life even when the nurturing liquid of life falls on

their lip, withered bodies.

Then Bryant goes on to name the different flowers that died, “the wind-flower and the

violet, they perished long ago,/ and the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow.”

These lines give a timeline of what season these flowers bloom and perish in.

“But on the hills the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood,

and the yellow sun-flower by the brook in autumn beauty stood,

till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on men,

and the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland, glade, and glen.”

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These lines tell exactly how these wild beauties died and how the snow snuffed out their light

like the plague snuffed out many human lives. As the reader goes through the poem they can

visualize the calm day when animals and insects come out to look around. But then a slight

breeze comes through and, “the south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he

bore,/ and sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more.” In the last stanza Bryant

turns his focus to one flower in particular which he refers to as a female. He says, “and then I

think of one who in her youthful beauty died,/ the fair meek blossom that grew up and faded by

my side.” These lines make a person think that Bryant is not just referring to a flower, but using

the flower as a metaphor to talk about a female who he loved and lost. It also seems as if in the

last stanza the topic shifts from a poem purely about flowers dying to a poem about a young

person dying. And this shifts goes on to indicate the burring of the dead, “in the cold moist earth

we laid her, when the forest cast the leaf,/ and we wept that one so lovely should have a life so

brief.” It seems as if this female died young and can no longer be found by anyone just like the

wind can no longer find the flowers. Bryant ends the poem with this, “yet not unmeet it was that

one, like that young friend of ours,/ so gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers.”

This is where Bryant bluntly states that he is talking about a human and leaves the reader with a

sense that maybe he too lost someone important to him. My understanding of the poem was right

because according to Gale Cengage ‘“The Death of the Flowers,” written on the death of

Bryant's sister, identifies the dead woman with the decay of beautiful summertime.”

As a poet Bryant tended to be on the more gloomy side and liked to focus on death. “The

main tension in the work of Bryant came from the polarity between nature and civilization. The

dark, violent aspects of nature now marked the terrible distance between God and man and

served as a salutary warning against the ravages of civilization,” (Sanford, Charles 440).

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However, there were those rare moments where he did write about happier things and one of

those poems was “The Gladness of Nature.” It starts out with, “is this a time to be cloudy and

sad,/ when our mother Nature laughs around.” It is like he is saying there is no reason to be down

in the dumps all the time, especially when the sun is out shining brightly. And it is easy to see in

the happiness in the sky and feel it coming up from the earth. Then it moves on to the animals,

“there are notes of joy from the hang-bird and wren,/ and the gossip of swallows through all the

sky.” The stanza then continues to show how happy the animals are, “the ground-squirrel gaily

chirps by his den,/ and the wilding bee hums merrily by.” All of these lines so far are showing

how everything living and moving is happy. The next stanza talks about the clouds and how

happy they are,

“The clouds are at play in the azure space,

And their shadows at play on the bright green vale,

And here they stretch to the frolic chase,

And there they roll on the easy gale.”

The poem then talks about all the different things in nature and how they are out playing and

enjoying themselves. The final stanza goes back to the sun, “and look at the broad-faced sun,

how he smiles,” and how it can make someone’s day, “look, and he’ll smile thy gloom away.”

All of the poems from “The Hurricane” and “The Death of the Flowers” to “The

Gladness of Nature,” have several things in common in the way Bryant liked to write his poems.

At first it seems as if Bryant is nothing but a free verse poet, but after reading and explicating

several poems it is easy to see that he doesn’t mind using structure. With the poems “The

Hurricane” and “The Death of the Flowers” it is easy for the reader to see that Bryant liked to

use rhyme because there were at least two couplet rhymes per stanza. For example, “year and

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sere” and “nigh and sky.” And in “The Gladness of Nature” he uses rhyme but instead the end

word of every other line rhymes. The poems also use alliteration like, “breath in the burning

sky,” from “The Hurricane” and “wailing winds, and naked woods,” from “The Death of the

Flowers.”

After explicating several poems it has become obvious that Bryant had a love of writing

about death, but he also found life intriguing too. He also formed a certain way of writing about

nature from the alteration to the different rhyme schemes. And it can easily be seen that, “the

scenery of Bryant's native Massachusetts figures prominently in his early work, although these

landscapes are often tinged with feelings of displacement and nostalgia,” (Vespa, Jack 285),

which is easy to see in the poems above. “Bryant believed in attending more carefully to the

natural landscape surrounding them,” (Michael Branch).

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Work Cited

Branch, Michael. "WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT: THE NATURE POET AS

ENVIRONMENTAL

JOURNALIST." 12.3 (1998): 182. Web. 6 Apr. 2013.

Bryant, William. "The Death of the Flowers." Poem Hunter. Poem Hunter, 05 04 2010. Web. 5

Apr 2013.

Bryant, William. "The Hurricane." Poem Hunter. Poem Hunter, 05 04 2010. Web. 5 Apr 2013.

Bryant, William. "Poet's Corner." The Other Pages. Poet's Corner, n.d. Web. 6 Apr 2013.

LEONARD, WILLIAM. "Early Years." Bartleby. THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF

ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE , n.d. Web. 7 Apr 2013.

McDonnell, John. "Poet's Corner." The Other Pages. Poet's Corner, n.d. Web. 6 Apr

2013."William Cullen Bryant 1794–1878." E-notes. Poetry Criticism, n.d. Web. 6 Apr

2013.

Sanford, Charles. "The Concept of the Sublime in the Works of Thomas Cole and William

Cullen Bryant."American Literature. 28.4 (1957): 440. Web. 7 Apr. 2013.

Vespa, Jack. "The unsurveyed interior: William Cullen Bryant and the Prairie State." ATQ. 11.4

(1997): 285. Web. 7 Apr. 2013.