The Night Journey of a River

Author: William Cullen Bryant  | Date: 1857

THE NIGHT JOURNEY OF A RIVER

Oh River, gentle River! gliding on

In silence underneath the starless sky!

Thine is a ministry that never rests

Even while the living slumber. For a time

The meddler, man, hath left the elements

In peace; the ploughman breaks the clods no more;

The miner labors not, with steel and fire,

To rend the rock, and he that hews the stone,

And he that fells the forest, he that guides

The loaded wain, and the poor animal

That drags it, have forgotten, for a time,

Their toils, and share the quiet of the earth.

Thou pausest not in thine allotted task,

Oh darkling River! Through the night I hear

Thy wavelets rippling on the pebbly beach;

I hear thy current stir the rustling sedge,

That skirts thy bed; thou intermittest not

Thine everlasting journey, drawing on

A silvery train from many a woodland spring

And mountain-brook. The dweller by thy side,

Who moored his little boat upon thy beach,

Though all the waters that upbore it then

Have slid away o’er night, shall find, at morn,

Thy channel filled with waters freshly drawn

From distant cliffs, and hollows where the rill

Comes up amid the water-flags. All night

Thou givest moisture to the thirsty roots

Of the lithe willow and o’erhanging plane,

And cherishest the herbage of thy bank,

Spotted with little flowers, and sendest up

Perpetually the vapors from thy face,

To steep the hills with dew, or darken heaven

With drifting clouds, that trail the shadowy shower.

Oh River! darkling River! what a voice

Is that thou utterest while all else is still-

The ancient voice that, centuries ago,

Sounded between thy hills, while Rome was yet

A weedy solitude by Tiber’s stream!

How many, at this hour, along thy course,

Slumber to thine eternal murmurings,

That mingle with the utterance of their dreams!

At dead of night the child awakes and hears

Thy soft, familiar dashings, and is soothed,

And sleeps again. An airy multitude

Of little echoes, all unheard by day,

Faintly repeat, till morning, after thee,

The story of thine endless goings forth.

Yet there are those who lie beside thy bed

For whom thou once didst rear the bowers that screen

Thy margin, and didst water the green fields;

And now there is no night so still that they

Can hear thy lapse; their slumbers, were thy voice

Louder than Ocean’s, it could never break.

For them the early violet no more

Opens upon thy bank, nor, for their eyes,

Glitter the crimson pictures of the clouds,

Upon thy bosom, when the sun goes down.

Their memories are abroad, the memories

Of those who last were gathered to the earth,

Lingering within the homes in which they sat,

Hovering above the paths in which they walked,

Haunting them like a presence. Even now

They visit many a dreamer in the forms

They walked in, ere at last they wore the shroud.

And eyes there are which will not close to dream,

For weeping and for thinking of the grave,

The new-made grave, and the pale one within.

These memories and these sorrows all shall fade,

And pass away, and fresher memories

And newer sorrows come and dwell awhile

Beside thy borders, and, in turn, depart.

On glide thy waters, till at last they flow

Beneath the windows of the populous town,

And all night long give back the gleam of lamps,

And glimmer with the trains of light that stream

From halls where dancers whirl. A dimmer ray

Touches thy surface from the silent room

In which they tend the sick, or gather round

The dying; and a slender, steady beam

Comes from the little chamber, in the roof

Where, with a feverous crimson on her cheek,

The solitary damsel, dying, too,

Plies the quick needle till the stars grow pale.

There, close beside the haunts of revel, stand

The blank, unlighted windows, where the poor,

In hunger and in darkness, wake till morn.

There, drowsily, on the half-conscious ear

Of the dull watchman, pacing on the wharf,

Falls the soft ripple of the waves that strike

On the moored bark; but guiltier listeners

Are nigh, the prowlers of the night, who steal

From shadowy nook to shadowy nook, and start

If other sounds than thine are in the air.

Oh, glide away from those abodes, that bring

Pollution to thy channel and make foul

Thy once clear current; summon thy quick waves

And dimpling eddies; linger not, but haste,

With all thy waters, haste thee to the deep,

There to be tossed by shifting winds and rocked

By that mysterious force which lives within

The sea’s immensity, and wields the weight

Of its abysses, swaying to and fro

The billowy mass, until the stain, at length,

Shall wholly pass away, and thou regain

The crystal brightness of thy mountain-springs.

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Chicago: William Cullen Bryant, The Night Journey of a River Original Sources, accessed March 29, 2024, http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=NPZRI8KZK5LTR3B.

MLA: Bryant, William Cullen. The Night Journey of a River, Original Sources. 29 Mar. 2024. http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=NPZRI8KZK5LTR3B.

Harvard: Bryant, WC, The Night Journey of a River. Original Sources, retrieved 29 March 2024, from http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=NPZRI8KZK5LTR3B.