Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1878-07-15
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THANATOPSIS.
DY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

To him who, in the love Of nature, holds
Communion with her visible forms, 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 gentle sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts
OF the last bitter hour come like blight
Over thy spirit and the sad images
0fthe 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 depth of air
Comes a still voice: Yet few days. and thee
The all-behoding 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 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, surrenderng up
Thine individual being shalt thou go
To mix forever with the elements;
To be a brother to the insensible rock,
And to the sluggish clod which thy 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 couldst 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 seers Of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills,
Rock-rbbed, and ancient as the sun; 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
Are but the solemn decorations all
or the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite hosts of heaven.
Are shining on the sad abodes of DEATH,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe but handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings
OF ofmorning, traverse Barca's desest sands,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon. and hears no sound
Save his own dashngs-yet the dead are thereI
And millions in those solitudes, 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
In silence 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 favorte 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 mem
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 that moves
To the pale realms of shade where each shall take
| His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou 60 not like the quarry.slave at night.
Scourged to his dungeon but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.