The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1878-06-21
Pc q I'll g al.
ThanatOpsis.
THE LATE WIN. CULLEN BRYANT's GREATEST POEM wRITTI
AT THE AGE OF 10.

THE LATE WIN. CULLEN BRYANT's GREATEST POEM WRITE
AT THE AGE OF 10.
To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
various language for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, aud a 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
or the last bitter hour come like blight
over thy spirit, and sad images
Or the stern agony, and shrOud and pail,
And breatlllesS, darkness aud the narrow house.
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart -
ito forth, under the open sky, and list
To Natures teachings, while from all around
Earth aud her waters, and the depths of air.
Comes n still yoice-Yet n few days, and thee
The allbeholding sun shall sec 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 thOn go
10 mix for ever with the elements,
To he a brother TO the insensible rock
And to the sluggish cod, which tho 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 patrarchs of the infant world-with kings
The powerful of the earth-the wse the good
Fair forms, and hoary seers Of ages past
All in one mighty sepulchre The hills
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun-the wales
Stretching in pensive quietness between
The venerable woods-riyers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks
Ihat 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 abodes Of death
Through the still lapse of ages All that tread
The globe are but handful to the tribes
slumDpr bosom Sn ln
OF morning, traverse BarcRs desert sands
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods,
Where rolls the Oregan, and hears sound,
Save his own dashngs-yet-the dead are there;
And millions in those sOliudes, since first
The flight 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
10 silence from 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
Plod on, and each one as before will chase
Ills faYorto 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 full strength of years, matrou and maid
Aud the sweet babe, and the gray headed man.
Shall one by sne be gathered to thy side
By those, who in their turn shall follow them.
So live, that when thy summons comes to ioin
The 1nnumerable 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-save at night
scourged to his dungeon, but sustained and sOothed
by an unintering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him and lies down to pleasant dreams.