Hope Blooms Eternal

“To the Fringed Gentian”

William Cullen Bryant

THOU blossom bright with autumn dew,

And colored with the heaven’s own blue

That openest when the quiet light

Succeeds the keen and frosty night.

Though comest not when violets lean

O’er wandering brooks and springs unseen,

Or columbines, in purple dressed,

Nod o’er the ground-bird’s nest.

Thou waitest late and comest alone,

When woods are bare and birds are flown,

And frosts and shortening days portend

The aged year is at an end.

Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye

Look through its fringes to the sky,

Blue—blue—as if that sky let fall

A flower from its cerulean wall.

I would that thus, when I shall see

The hour of death draw near to me,

Hope, blossoming within my heart,

May look to heaven as I depart.

William Cullen Bryant, in his poem “To the Fringed Gentian” does more than simply describe a flower. He ties his description of the flower to a sense of death’s beauty, and the idea that though all things die, death is not necessarily the end. Bryant accomplishes this idea of beauty even in death through his use of imagery, rhymes, and repetition of ideas and words.

Bryant begins the poem by describing the Gentian as “colored with heaven’s own blue” (line 2). This immediately makes the reader think of the sky, and the reader knows this is a beautiful flower the persona is talking about. Blue is also a calm, quiet color as opposed to red or orange. This coloring serves to enhance the idea of beauty and tranquility that comes with the lines. He then tells us when the Fringed Gentian blooms:

Though comest not when violets lean…
Or columbines, in purple dressed,
nod o’er the ground-bird’s nest”
(lines 5-8)

Violets bloom in the spring and summer, and often are used to represent death, especially at funerals: due to their purple color. Columbines, also purple, may also represent this mourning. With these lines Bryant has separated the Fringed Gentian from mourning death, as a violet or purple color signifies. The Fringed Gentian, rather than blooming in spring or summer, as many flowers do, blooms instead

When woods are bare and birds are flown,
And frosts and shortening days portend
The aged year is at an end”
(lines 10-12)

This obviously refers to autumn and early winter. The Fringed Gentian blooms when all other plants die or lie dormant. Only when the world seems dead (during winter) does the Gentian bloom. Towards the end of the poem, Bryant again links the Fringed Gentian to heaven, as the “sky let fall / a flower from its cerulean wall” (lines 15-16). In the last four lines, Bryant fully reveals the culmination of the poem, and what it all means.

I would that thus, when I shall see
The hour of death draw near to me,
Hope, blossoming within my heart,
May look to heaven as I depart.
(lines 17-20)

The flower is the persona’s hope. In line fourteen Bryant describes the Gentian’s blossom looking “through its fringes to the sky,” just as the persona’s hope will “look to heaven” (line 20). As the Fringed Gentian blossoms when all other flowers die, so the persona Bryant has created wishes for hope to bloom as he dies.

Bryant used a fairly simple rhyme scheme in “To the Fringed Gentian.” The last word in each line rhymes with the last word of the following line, in sets of two. Dew, blue; then light, night; lean, unseen; and so on. While simple, this repetitive rhyming conveys a sense of beauty to the poem. Every two lines, the reader pauses for a moment as the ‘piece’ comes to an end. The rhyming draws the two lines together, and finishes them off as a small individual part of the poem. The overall effect of the rhyme scheme is a consistent, slow, and repetitive beat. In combination with the words used, this has a calming effect on the reader, which matches what Bryant is hoping to convey.

William Cullen Bryant repeats a few words and ideas throughout the poem in order to drive home the imagery of the piece. He uses the word blue three times, as well as cerulean: meaning a sky blue. While the Fringed Gentian is actually blue in color, this repetition constantly reminds the reader of the relation of the flower to the sky and heaven: two other words he repeated. Bryant also repeated the idea of the blossoming throughout the poem. This morphed from the flower blooming to hope blossoming like the flower. All this repetition drove home Bryant’s idea that death can be beautiful, and not something one should mourn. When all else fades away in death, there is still hope, and there is still heaven waiting in the blue sky.

In “To the Fringed Gentian,” William Cullen Bryant describes a flower, but he also describes hope eternal. The flower symbolizes the persona’s hope that when he dies, and everything falls away, heaven will still be there. Like the Fringed Gentian, hope will bloom even as his heart feels the chill of death. Death does not have to be something mourned, but rather a beautiful part of life.
To the Fringed Gentian