Delaware Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1843-1874, 1866-07-30
MONDAY MORNING, JULY 30, 1866.
THANATOPSIS.

To him who, 10 the love OF Nature, holds
Communion with her visible form, she speaks
various language; for his gayer hours
She has voice OF gladness, 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 q blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
OF the stern agony, and shroud, and pail,
And breathless darkness, and the mar row
house,
Make thee to sh hudder, 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. Yet fow 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 was laid, with many tears,
Nor ia the embrace Of ocean, shall exist
Thy imGge. Earth, that nourish'd thee, sh all
claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again;
And, lost each human trace, suIrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou 60
To mix forever with the elements,
To be 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 alone-nor ceuldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie
With patriarchs of the infant world,-with
kings,
The powerful of the earth,-the wise, and the
good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
Ill in one mighty sepulchre. The hills
Rock.ribb'd au ancient as the suH-the wales
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 oceans gray and melancholy waste
All 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 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. traverse Barca's desert sands,
Or lose thyself in the continues woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
Save its 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 aud what il thou withdraw
In Oilence from the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
viii share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one, as before, will chase
His fayorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their epjoymen:s, and shall
come
And make their bed with thee. As the long
train
OF ages gllies away, the sons of men
The youth in life's green spring, and he who
goes
In the full strength of years, matron and
maid,
And the sweet babe, and the gray headed
man
Shall, one by one, be gathered to thy side,
By those who in their turn shall follow them.
So live that, when thy summons comes to
join
The innumerable caravan, which 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, sustain'd and
soothed
| By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like ore who wraps the drspery OF his couch
About him, aud lies down to pleasant dreams