Herald of the times. [volume] (Newport, R.I.) 1830-1846, 1841-04-08
THANATOPSIS.
BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

To him who, In the love Of Nature, holds
Communion with her visible forms. she speaks
A various language. For his gayer hours,
She has voice Of glainess, and II smile
And eloquence OF beauty and she glides
Into his darker musings with mild
And gentle sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware When thoughts
or the last bitter hour come like blighI
Over thy spirit, and sad images
OF the stern agony, and shrou !, and pail
And breaihess darkness, and the narrow house,
Nuke thee shudder aud grow sick at heart
60 forth unto the open sky, and list
To natures teachings, while from all around
Earth and her waters, aud the depths ofair--
Comes n still yoice-let few days aud thee
The all-behodipg sun shall
lu ali his course Nor yet in the cold ground.
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
Nor IN the embrace Of ocean, shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that nourshed thee shall clHin
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,
Aud, lost each hnman trace surrenderingup
Thine individual being, shall thou go
To NIX forever with the elements,
To be n brother to the insensible rock
Aud TO the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share, aud Ireads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad and pierce thy mould,
Yet not Ia thy eternal resting. place
Shalt ihou retire alone nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnileent. Thou shalt lie down
With pa,riarchs 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 sepulchre. The hills,
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun the wales,
Stretching in pensiye quieness betweeni
The venerable woods; rivers that move
In majesty and The complaining brooks,
That make the meadows green and, poured round all,
Old oceans gray and melancholy waste,
Are bat the solemn decorations all
OF the great tomb Of man. The golden sun,
The planets all the infinite host OF heaven,
Are shining on Tie sad nbodes OF death,
Through the still lapse Of ages. All that tread
The globe but handful to the tribes
That slunber in its bosom. Take the wings
or morning aud the Barcan desert riercei
Or lose Thy self in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound,
Save his dashings yet, the dead aro there
And millions in those so!ltudes, since first
The flight of years begun, have laid them down
In their last sleep the dead reign there alone
so shalt thou rest and what if thou shalt fail.
Uuuotced by the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure All that breathe
Will share thy destiny The gay will laugh
When thou ART gone the solemn brood OF care
Plod on, and each one, nv before, will chase
Ills hvoiite phantom yet all these shall leave
Their mirh aud their employ menls, aud shall come
And make their bed wIlh thee. As The long train
or ages glide away, the sons of men,
The youth in lies green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength Of years, maIron, Gnd nuid
The bowed with age, The infant, in the smiles
And beauty Of its innocent age cut of,
Shall, one 10y one, be gathered to thy side,
BY those, who in their turn, shall follow them.
So live, that, when the summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan, lhut moves
To the pale realms Of shade, where each shall take
His chamber III the silent halls Of death,
Thou go not, like The quarry slave nt nigh',
scourged To his dungeon but, sustained and soothed
by all uufuliering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery oi his couch
About him, and lies down TO pleasant dreams.