Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889
To the Fringed Gentian
By William Cullen Bryant (17941878)T
And colored with the heaven’s own blue,
That openest when the quiet light
Succeeds the keen and frosty night.
O’er wandering brooks and springs unseen,
Or columbines, in purple dressed,
Nod o’er the ground-bird’s hidden nest.
When woods are bare and birds are flown,
And frosts and shortening days portend
The aged year is near his end.
Look through its fringes to the sky,
Blue—blue—as if that sky let fall
A flower from its cerulean wall.
The hour of death draw near to me,
Hope, blossoming within my heart,
May look to heaven as I depart.