But 'neath yon crimson tree Lover to listening maid might breathe his flame, Nor mark, within its roseate canopy, Her blush of maiden shame.

The stormy March has come at last, With winds and clouds and changing skies; I hear the rushing of the blast That through the snowy valley flies.

A sculptor wields The chisel, and the stricken marble grows To beauty.

[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.

'I was the hopeless romantic. I had so many crushes. But not on the real obvious girls. I was into the quirky ones. I was so shy, though.'

As all the perfumes of the vanished day Rise from the earth still moistened with the dew So from my chastened soul beneath thy ray Old love is born anew.

I care not for these ladies, That must be wooed and prayed; Give me kind Amaryllis, The wanton country maid. Nature art disdaineth; Her beauty is her own.