The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1878-06-22
Select 4oetrg.
THANAT0PsIs.
BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
various language; for his gayer hours
She has voice of gladness, and smile
And eloouence of beauty and she glides
Into his darker musings, with mild
Aud healing sympathy, that steals away
rbeir sharpness ere he is aware. When Thoughts
oftbo last bitter hour come like blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
ortba stern agony, and shroud, and pail,
And brealhless darkness, and the narrow mouse,
Make thee to shudder and grow sick at heart; :
Go forth, under the open sky, and list
tn Natures teachings, while from all around
rortb and her waters, and the depths of air.
Comes still voice-Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground
where tby pale form was laid, with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
rb,, 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 a 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 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
Pock.ribbed and ancient as the sun-the wales
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods-rivers that move
T., 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
Ofthe 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 thetribes
That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings
Ofmorning traverse Barca's desert sands,
Or lose myself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregan, and hears no sound,
Save his own dashings-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 tn ere alone
So shalt thou rest and what if 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 mrth and their employments, and shall come
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Ofages glide away, the sons of men,
The youth in life's 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 innumerabe caravan, which moves
To that mysterious realm, 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.