Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1878-07-05
ROCKVILLE. MARYLAND. FRIDAY MORNING. s., ISIS
gnetital.
~ e'''s'i-'''''' 49, 49, ~ e. ~
THANATOPSIS.
by WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

b1 WILLIAM OOlIhN ANT
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 sladness, and 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
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 still voice. Yet few days, and thee
The all beholding sun shall see no more
| In all bis 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 forever with the clements,
| To be brother TO the insensihle rock
And TO the sluggish clod, which the rudeswain
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-ribbed and ancient as the sun the Wales,
Stretching in pensve quietness between
The venerable woods rivers that move
10 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 o. heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes Of death
Through the still lapse of ages. All that reat
The globe are but handful to the tribes
That sumber in It's bosom. Take the wing
OF morning, and the Barcan desert pierce,
Or loose myself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
Save his own dashings-yet the dead are there
And millions in those soitudes, since first
The flight Of years began, have laid them dow
In their las, sleep, the dead reign there alon,
So shalt thou rest, and what if thou shalt fa
Unnoticed by the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breath
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laug
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of cal
Plod on, and each one as before will chase
His favorite phantom yet all these shall leav
Their mirth and their employments and sha
come
And make their bed with thee. AS the Ion
train
OF ages glides away, the sons OF men,
The youth in LIES green spring, and he VIII
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 10 thy side,
By those, who in their turn shall follow them
So live, that, when thy summons comes 10 joi
The innumerable caravan which moves
To the pale realms Of shade, where each sha
take
His chamber in the silent halls Of death,
Thou go, not like the 1uarry-slave at night,
Scourged to bis dungeon, but, sustained an
soothed
BY an unfaterng trust, approach thy grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his coucl
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams