The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1878-06-27
THANATOPSIS.
BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

To him Who int 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 smile
And eoouence of beauty; and she glldes
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 the sad images
OF the stern agony, and shToud 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 nat lures teachings, while from all around
Earth aud her waters, and the depth of air
Comes still voice: Yet few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall soc no 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, 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 thine eternal resting place
Shalt thou retire al0ne-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 heary seers of ages past
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills,
Rock-ribbed, and ancient as the sun; the wales
Stretching in pensive quietness betweeni
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 planets, all the infinite hosts OF heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of DEATH
Through the still lapse of ages All that tread
The globe are bnt handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings
OF morning, traverse Barca's desert sands,
Or lose thysef 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 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 ii thou Withdraw
In 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
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 lifes green spring. and he who 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 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-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, 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.