The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1878-07-04
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 a voice of gladness and a smile
| And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
{ 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
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
comes Come % still eV ToiceYet q few days p'a and thee
The all beholding sun shall see zee no more
Where thy pale form was laid, with many
tears,
Nor in the embr ace 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
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy
Yet not thine eternal resting place
Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish
With patriarchs of the infant world-with
kings,
The powerful of the earth-the wise, the good,
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills
ROck-ribbed and ancient as the Sun-the wales
Stretching in penSiVe quietneSS between;
The venerable woodS-r1yers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks
That make the meadows green f; and, poured
round all,
Old ocean S gray and melancholy waste
Are but the solemn decorators 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 a handful to The tribes
That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings
OF the morning, and the Barcan desert pierce,
Or lose thyselfin the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound,
Save his own ndashings-yet-the dead are there:
And millions in those solitudes, 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 breathe |
W ill 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 glides away, the of men,
The youth i'll Hfe's green spring, and he who |
In the full strength of fyears-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 the 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
By an unfalterng trust. approach thy grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.