Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TREE-BURIAL, by WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT Poem Explanation Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Near our southwestern border, when a child Last Line: "my home till I depart to be with thee." Subject(s): Holidays; Trees | ||||||||
NEAR our southwestern border, when a child Dies in the cabin of an Indian wife, She makes its funeral-couch of delicate furs, Blankets and bark, and binds it to the bough Of some broad branching tree with leathern thongs And sinews of the deer. A mother once Wrought at this tender task, and murmured thus: "Child of my love, I do not lay thee down Among the chilly clods where never comes The pleasant sunshine. There the greedy wolf Might break into thy grave and tear thee thence, And I should sorrow all my life. I make Thy burial-place here, where the light of day Shines round thee, and the airs that play among The boughs shall rock thee. Here the morning sun, Which woke thee once from sleep to smile on me, Shall beam upon thy bed, and sweetly here Shall lie the red light of the evening clouds Which called thee once to slumber. Here the stars Shall look upon thee--the bright stars of heaven Which thou didst wonder at. Here too the birds, Whose music thou didst love, shall sing to thee, And near thee build their nests and rear their young With none to scare them. Here the woodland flowers, Whose opening in the spring-time thou didst greet With shouts of joy, and which so well became Thy pretty hands when thou didst gather them, Shall spot the ground below thy little bed. "Yet haply thou hast fairer flowers than these, Which, in the land of souls, thy spirit plucks In fields that wither not, amid the throng Of joyous children, like thyself, who went Before thee to that brighter world and sport Eternally beneath its cloudless skies. Sport with them, dear, dear child, until I come To dwell with thee, and thou, beholding me, From far, shalt run and leap into my arms, And I shall clasp thee as I clasped thee here While living, oh most beautiful and sweet Of children, now more passing beautiful, If that can be, with eyes like summer stars-- A light that death can never quench again. "And now, oh wind, that here among the leaves Dost softly rustle, breathe thou ever thus Gently, and put not forth thy strength to tear The branches and let fall their precious load, A prey to foxes. Thou, too, ancient sun, Beneath whose eye the seasons come and go, And generations rise and pass away, While thou dost never change--oh, call not up, With thy strong heats, the dark, grim thunder-cloud, To smite this tree with bolts of fire, and rend Its trunk and strew the earth with splintered boughs. Ye rains, fall softly on the couch that holds My darling. There the panther's spotted hide Shall turn aside the shower; and be it long, Long after thou and I have met again, Ere summer wind or winter rain shall waste This couch and all that now remains of thee, To me thy mother. Meantime, while I live, With each returning sunrise I shall seem To see thy waking smile, and I shall weep; And when the sun is setting I shall think How, as I watched thee, o'er thy sleepy eyes Drooped the smooth lids, and laid on the round cheek Their lashes, and my tears will flow again; And often, at those moments, I shall seem To hear again the sweetly prattled name Which thou didst call me by, and it will haunt My home till I depart to be with thee." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE PROBLEM OF DESCRIBING TREES by ROBERT HASS THE GREEN CHRIST by ANDREW HUDGINS MIDNIGHT EDEN by JOSEPHINE JACOBSEN REFLECTION OF THE WOOD by LEONIE ADAMS THE LIFE OF TREES by DORIANNE LAUX A FOREST HYMN by WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT |
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