Wyoming democrat. [volume] (Tunkhannock, Wyoming Co., Pa.) 1867-1940, 1868-04-08
Noetu.
THANATOPSIS.
By WIN. CULLEN BRYANT.

To him who IN the love OF nature holds
Communion With her visible ferns, she speaks
various language for his gayer hours
She has voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquenee 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 a still voce-Yet few days, and thee
The all-beholding shall see no more,
In all his course 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 nOurished thee shall claim
Thy growth to be resolved to earth again,
And, lost each human trace, surrenderiug up
Thine individual being, shalt thou 60,
To mix forever with the elements,
To be a brother 90 the insensible. rock,
And to the sluggish cod which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pearce thy mould
Yet not to thine eternal resting place
Shalt thou retire aIono-nor eouldst 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 of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre.- THE hills
Rock ribbed aud ancient as the sun-the wales
Stretching in pensive quietness between
The venerable woods-rvers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks
That make tho meadows green; and poured round
all.
Old Oceans gray and melancholy waste,-
Are bnt the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heasen,
Are shining on the sad abodes of DEATH
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
phe globe are but handful to the tribes
That sluulber in It's bosom.-Takc the wings
OF mornng-and the Barcan deserts pierce,
Or loose thyself in the continuous woods,
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
Save his own dashtngs-yet-the dead are there
And millions in those soli udes, since first
The fight 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
Unhee ded 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
PIod 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 gliies away, the sons of men,
The youth in hfe's green spring, and he who goes,
In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
And the sweet babe, and The gray-hared man
Shall one by one, be gathered to thy side,
By those, who in their turn shall follow them.
So life, that when thy summons comes TO join
The inDumerable caravan that moves
To that mysterious realm where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of deaih,
Thou go not like the quarry slave at night.
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and
sOothed
By an rnfaltering trust, approach thy grave.
Like one who wraps the drapery Of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasat dreams.