To the Past
by William Cullen Bryant
First published online on 2006 January 01.
SFFH: Article
Thou unrelenting Past!
Strong are the barriers round thy dark domain,
And fetters, sure and fast,
Hold all that enter thy unbreathing reign.
Far in thy realm withdrawn,
Old empires sit in sullenness and gloom;
And glorious ages gone
Lie deep within the shadow of thy womb.
Childhood, with all its mirth,
Youth, manhood, age, that draws us to the ground,
And last, man’s life on earth,
Glide to thy dim dominions, and are bound.
Thou hast my better years,
Thou hast my earlier friends–the good–the kind,
Yielded to thee with tears–
The venerable form–the exalted mind.
My spirit yearns to bring
The lost ones back–yearns with desire intense,
And struggles hard to wring
Thy bolts apart, and pluck thy captives thence.
In vain–thy gates deny
All passage, save to those who hence depart;
Nor to the streaming eye
Thou givest them back–nor to the broken heart.
In thy abysses hide
Beauty and excellence unknown–to thee
Earth’s wonder and her pride
Are gather’d, as the waters to the sea.
Labours of good to man,
Unpublish’d charity–unbroken faith–
Love, that midst grief began,
And grew with years, and falter’d not in death.
Full many a mighty name
Lurks in thy depths, unutter’d, unrevered;
With thee are silent fame,
Forgotten arts, and wisdom disappear’d.
Thine, for a space, are they–
Yet shalt thou yield thy treasures up at last;
Thy gates shall yet give way,
Thy bolts shall fail, inexorable Past!
All that of good and fair
Has gone into thy womb, from earliest time,
Shall then come forth, to wear
The glory and the beauty of its prime.
They have not perish’d–no!
Kind words, remember’d voices, once so sweet,
Smiles radiant long ago,
And features, the great soul’s apparent seat;
All shall come back, each tie
Of pure affection shall be knit again;
Alone shall evil die,
And sorrow dwell a prisoner in thy reign.
And then shall I behold
Him, by whose kind paternal side I sprung,
And her who, still and cold,
Fills the next grave–the beautiful and young.
Born in Cunnington, Massachusetts, in 1794; admitted to the bar 1815; published “the Ages, and other Poems,” in 1821; removed to the city of New York in 1825; and in 1826 became one of the editors of the Evening Post, with which he has ever since been connected. His literary publication, “The Fountain, and other Poems,” was issued in 1842.
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