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Oh Fairest Of The Rural Maids.

By William Cullen Bryant

Topics: classic

Oh fairest of the rural maids!     Thy birth was in the forest shades;     Green boughs, and glimpses of the sky,     Were all that met thy infant eye.     Thy sports, thy wanderings, when a child,     Were ever in the sylvan wild;     And all the beauty of the place     Is in thy heart and on thy face.     The twilight of the trees and rocks     Is in the light shade of thy locks;     Thy step is as the wind, that weaves     Its playful way among the leaves.     Thine eyes are springs, in whose serene     And silent waters heaven is seen;     Their lashes are the herbs that look     On their young figures in the brook.     The forest depths, by foot unpressed,     Are not more sinless than thy breast;     The holy peace, that fills the air     Of those calm solitudes, is there.

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Author:William Cullen Bryant

"Oh fairest of the rural maids!..." by William Cullen Bryant

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"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"

William Cullen Bryant

About William Cullen Bryant

William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878) was an American poet and journalist. His poem "Thanatopsis" (1817) was the first major American poem. He edited the New York Evening Post for 50 years and was a champion of American poetry.

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