Thanatopsis
To him who, in the love of Nature, hold
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language: for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty; and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over they spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at the heart, --
Go forth under the open sky, and list
To Nature's teachings, while from all around--
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air--
Comes a still voice:-- yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where they pale form was laid, with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
They image, Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
They growth, to be resolved to earth again;
And lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix forever with the elements;
To be a brother to the insensible rock,
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce they mold.
Yet not to thine eternal resting place
Shalt though retire alone -- nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world -- with kings,
The powerful of the earth -- the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulcher. The hills,
Rock-ribbed, and ancient as the sun; the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods; rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks,
That make the meadows green; and, poured round all
Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste --
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man! The golden sun.
The planets, all in infinite host of heaven,
ARe shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings
Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness,
Or lost thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon and hears no sound
Save his own dashings -- yet the dead are there;
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep -- the dead reign there alone!
So shalt thou rest, and what if thou withdraw
In silence from the living; and no friend
Take note of they departure? All that breathe
Will share they destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou are gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one as before shall chase
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glides away, the sons of men --
The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes
In the full strengths of years, matron and maid,
And the sweet babe, and the gray-headed man --
All one by one be gathered to thy side,
By those, who in their turn shall follow them.
So live that when they summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan that moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach they grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
- William Cullen Bryant
