William Cullen Bryant

Loveliest of lovely things are they on earth that soonest pass away. The rose that lives its little hour is prized beyond the sculptured flower.

Difficulty, my brethren, is the nurse of greatness - a harsh nurse, who roughly rocks her foster - children into strength and athletic proportion.

Nothing can be more striking to one who is accustomed to the little inclosures called public parks in our American cities, than the spacious, open grounds of London. I doubt, in fact, whether any person fully comprehends their extent, from any of the ordinary descriptions of them, until he has seen them or tried to walk over them.

The Parisian has his amusements as regularly as his meals, the theatre, music, the dance, a walk in the Tuilleries, a refection in the cafe, to which ladies resort as commonly as the other sex. Perpetual business, perpetual labor, is a thing of which he seems to have no idea.

Truth gets well if she is run over by a locomotive, while error dies of lockjaw if she scratches her finger.

There is no glory in star or blossom till looked upon by a loving eye; There is no fragrance in April breezes till breathed with joy as they wander by.

To him who in the love of Nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language.

Go forth under the open sky, and list To Nature's teachings.

A sculptor wields The chisel, and the stricken marble grows To beauty.

Weep not that the world changes - did it keep a stable, changeless state, it were cause indeed to weep.

The birch-bark canoe of the savage seems to me one of the most beautiful and perfect things of the kind constructed by human art.

And suns grow meek, and the meek suns grow brief, and the year smiles as it draws near its death.