STRANGER, if thou hast learned a truth which needs No school of long experience, that the world Shall 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 Of all that pained thee in the haunts of men, 10 And made thee loathe thy life. The primal WHITHER, midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way? Vainly the fowler's eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, As, darkly seen against the crimson sky, Thy figure floats along. Seek'st thou the plashy brink Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, 10 1 The poem, as first published in the North American Review for September, 1817, under the title A Fragment,' ended at this point. The last lines were added in the first edition of the Poems, in 1821. On the origin of this poem, see Godwin's Life of Bryant, vol. i, pp. 143, 144. Hartley Coleridge once called it the best short poem in the English language; ' and Matthew Arnold was inclined to agree with his judgment. See an account of the incident in Bigelow's Life of Bryant, note to pp. 42, 43. Yet, fair as thou art, thou shunnest to glide, Beautiful stream! by the village side; But windest away from haunts of men, To quiet valley and shaded glen; And forest, and meadow, and slope of hill, For herbs of power on thy banks to look; That fairy music I never hear, 40 Nor gaze on those waters so green and clear, And mark them winding away from sight, And the zephyr stoops to freshen his wings, And the peace of the scene pass into my heart: The conqueror of nations, walks the world, And it is changed beneath his feet, and all Its kingdoms melt into one mighty realm Thou, while his head is loftiest and his heart Blasphemes, imagining his own right hand 40 Almighty, thou dost set thy sudden grasp Upon him, and the links of that strong chain Which bound mankind are crumbled; thou dost break Sceptre and crown, and beat his throne to dust. Then the earth shouts with gladness, and her tribes Gather within their ancient bounds again. Else had the mighty of the olden time, Nimrod, Sesostris, or the youth who feigned His birth from Libyan Ammon, smitten yet The nations with a rod of iron, and driven Their chariot o'er our necks. Thou dost avenge, 51 In thy good time, the wrongs of those who know No other friend. Nor dost thou interpose Only to lay the sufferer asleep, Where he who made him wretched troubles |