Lynchburg Virginian. [volume] (Lynchburg [Va.]) 1829-185?, 1852-04-22

n Vision 81 nl1AmA0rtolnsys
I who essayed to sing. in earlier days,
The Thansiopsis and the Hymn to Death,
Wake now the Hymn to immortality
Yet onee again, o man come forth and view
The haunts Of Nature; walk the waving fields,
Enter the silent groves or pierce again
Tia depths of the unfrodden wilderness,
And shc shall teach thee. Thou hast learned be-
fore
o. lesson--and her Hymn Of Death Ind fallen
With the melancholy sweetness thine ear;
Yet she shall tell thee with myriad tongue
That life is there--life in uncounted forms
Stealing in silence through the hidden roots,
In every branch that swings-in the green leaves,
And waving grain, md the gay summer flowers
That gladden. the bchoder. Listen now
And she shall teach thee that the dead have slept
But 20 awake in more glorious forms
And that the mystery of the seeds decay
Il but the promise of the coming life,
Each towering oak that lifts its living head
To the broad sunlight, in external strength,
Gories to tell thee that the acorn died.
The flowers that spring above their last years grave
Are eloquent with the voice Of life ard hope
And the green trees clap their rejoicing hands,
Waving in the triumph Ter the earths decay.
Yea not alone shull flower and forest raise
The voice Of Triumph and the hymn Of life.
Tho insect brood arethere each painted wing
That lutters in the sunshine, broke but now
From the close cercments Of a worms shroud,
Is telling MS it flies, how life may spring
In it's glad beauty from the gloom Of death.
Where the crushed mould beneath tho sunken foot
Seems but the sepulchre Of old decay,
Turn thou kcencr glance and thou shalt find
The gathered myriads Of a mimic world.
The breath of evening and tie sultry
Bears on its wing cloud of witnesses,
That earth from her numbered caves fdeaih
Sends forth a mighter tide of teeming life
Raise then the Hymn to Immortality.
The broad green prairies and the wilderness,
And the old cities where the dead have slept.
Age upon age, thousand graves in one.
Shall yet &c crowded with the living forms
OF Myriads, waking from the silent dust.
Kings that lay down in state, and carths poor
Resting togo ther in fond embrace,
The whitc-harcd patriarch and the tender babe,
Grown old together in the fight of years,
They Of immortal fame and they whose praise
was never sounded IN Inc ears oil men,
Archon and priest, and the poor common crowd =
All the vast concoursc in the halls Of death
Shall wnken from the dreams of silent years.
To hail the dawn of the immortal day.
Ay, learn the lesson. Though the worms shall be
Thy brother in the mystery Of DEATH
And all shall pass, humble and proud and gay
Together, to earth's mighty charnel-house;
Yet the Immortal is thy heritage
The grave shall gather thee; yet thou shalt come,
Bcggar or prince, not thou wentest forth,
In rigs purple, but arrycd as those
Whose mortal puts on Immortality
Then not when thou rinrlcst the decay
Oi Nature. and her solemn hymn Of death
Steals with note Of sadness to thy heart.
That other voice. with its rejoicing tones,
Breaks from the mould with every bursting flower,
'Ograye! thy victory" And thou. o man,
Burdened with sorrow at the that crowd
Thy narrow heritage, lift up thy head
In the strong hopes of the undying life,
And shout thy Hymn Immortality.
The dear departed that have passed away
To the still house of death, leaving thine own.
The grey-haired sire that died in blessing thee,
Mother or sweet-liPpcd babe, or she who gave
Thy home the light and bloom of Paradise,--
They shall be thine again, when thou shalt pass,
At Gods appointment, thro the shadowy vale,
To reach the sunlight of the IMMORTAL HILLS
And thou that gorest to lie down with kings,
Thine uncrowncd head now owlier than theirs
Seek thou the lofticr glory to be known
A King and priest to God,-when thou shalt pas,
Forth from these silent halls to take thy place
With patriarchs and prophets and the blest
Gone up from every land to people Heaven.
So live, that when the mighty caravan,
Which hats one nisht-time in the vale of Death,
Shall strike its white tents for the morning march,
Thou shalt mount onward to the ete nal Hills,
Thy foot unwearied. and thy stength renewed
Like the strong eagles for the upward fight
N. T. Independent.