The Oxford intelligencer. (Oxford, Miss.) 1860-18??, 1860-10-24

By wx. c. 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 gadness, and smile
And eloquence Of beauty; and she glides
Into his darker musings with mild
And healing sympathy that steals away
Their sharpness ere he is aware. When thoughts
OF the last bitter hour come like blight
Over thy spirit and sad images
OF the stern agony, and shroud and pail.
And breathless darkness. and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder and grow sick at heart
Go forth, under the open sky, and list
To Natures teachings, while from all around
Earth and her waters and the depths of air
Comes still voice: Yeta few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form is laid with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean shall exist lclam
Thy image Earth that nourished thee shall
The growth, TO be restored to earth again,
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thougo
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 thy mould
Yet not to thine eternal resting-place
Shalt thou retire aloneznor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs Of the infant world-with kings,
The powerful OF the carth---the wise, the good
Fair forms and hoary seers, of ages past,
Allin the mighty scpulchre. The hills,
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun-thc wales,
Stretching in pensiye quietness between;
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 but the solemn decorations all
OF the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abode of death,
Through the still lapse Of ages. All that tread
The globe are but handful of the tribes
That slumber in It's bosom-take the wings
OF morning, and the Barcan desert pierce
Or lose 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
Tic hight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep--the dead there reign alone
So shalt thou rest--and what il thou withdraw
Unheeded by the HING and no friend
Take note sf;'y departure? All that breathe
viii share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thouart gone the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one, as before, will 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 glide away the sons of men,
The youth in life's green spring, and he who
goes
In the full strength Of years ma'ron, and maid,
And ,he sweet babe, and the gray headed man
Shall one hy one be gathered to thy side,
BY those who, in their turn shall follow them.
80 live that, wncn the summons comes 10 JON
The innumerable caravan that moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls Of death,
Thou 90 not, like the quarry slave, at night
Scourgod to his dungeon, but, sustained and
soothcd
By an unfatering trust approach thy grave,
Like one that draws the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.