The Lafayette advertiser. [volume] (Vermilionville [i.e. Lafayette], La.) 1865-19??, 1878-06-29
THANATOPSIS.
BY WILLIAM CULLEN 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 gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings, with mind
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When Thoughts
OF the last bitter hour come like a 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. unto the open sky, and list
To natures teachings, while from all around
Earth and her waters, and the depth of air
Comes still voice-Yet few days. and thee
The all beholding sun shall see no more
In all her 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, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix for ever 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 andspierce thy mould
Yet not to thine eternal resting place
Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent Thou shall: 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 sepnlchre. The hills
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun-the wales
Stretching in pensive qnietness 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 plants, 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
That slumber in its 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 bis own dashings-yet- the dead are there;
And millions in those solitudcs, 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 shalt fall
Unnoticed by the living. and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathel
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
His favorite phantom !; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall
And make their beds with thee. As the long
train
Of ages glides away, the sons of men,
The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years-matron, anc 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 the pale realms OF shade, 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 sustained and
soothed
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.