Autumn, The Year's Last, Loveliest Smile.

Autumn, The Year's Last, Loveliest Smile.

Lay Down The Axe; Fling By The Spade; Leave In Its Track The Toiling Plough; The Rifle And The Bayonet-blade For Arms Like Yours Were Fitter Now; And Let The Hands That Ply The Pen Quit The Light Task, And Learn To Wield The Horseman's Crooked Brand, And Rein The Charger On The Battle-field.

[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.

Father, Thy Hand Hath Reared These Venerable Columns, Thou Didst Weave This Verdant Roof. Thou Didst Look Down Upon The Naked Earth, And, Forthwith, Rose All These Fair Ranks Of Trees. They, In Thy Sun, Budded, And Shook Their Green Leaves In Thy Breeze, And Shot Towards Heaven.

These Struggling Tides Of Life That Seem In Wayward, Aimless Course To Tend, Are Eddies Of The Mighty Stream That Rolls To Its Appointed End.