St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1878-06-21
William Cullen Bryant.
THE DEPARTED POET.

Since our last paper was printed,
VIM. c. Bryant, the poet-editor, has
died. There are many incidents told of
his long and honorable life. AS there
are conflicting accounts of the time and
circumstances of perhaps his most won
derful poem, "Thanatopsis," we give
his own statement as made to DR..
Prime two years ago. When about
half through his college course, and
when only Is years of age, one after
noon late in May, during a ramble in
the woods of Cummington, Mass, at
his fathers home, he rested beneath a
group of majestic forest trees and there
wrote this wonderful poem of the future
life:
THANATOPSIS.
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 a 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 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 nature teachings, while from all around
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air
Comes a still vOice-Yet few days and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
l r
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 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 thy 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 sepulchres The hills
Rock-ribbed and ancient the sun; the wales,
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods; rivers that move
| In majesty; and the complaining brooks,
That make the meadow 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
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 sound
Save his own dashingsi yet-the dead are there;
And millions i'll 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 shalt tall
| Unnoticed by the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departures 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 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 glide away, the sons of men,
| The youth in lfes green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years. matron, and maid,
The bowed with age the infant in the smiles
And beauty OF its innocent age cut off
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 go not, like the quarry-save at night,
Scourged to his dungeons 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.