The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1878-08-01
ThanatOpsis.
BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT, A. d. l8]

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 elOquence OF beauty; and she Slides
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 breath]css darkness, and the narrow
house, -.
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;
Go forth into the open sky, and list
TO Natures teaching, while, from all around
Comes still voice:
Yet few days, and thee
The all beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many
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, surrcndering up
Thine individual being, thou shalt go
To mix forever with the elements
To be brother to the insens. bic 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
mold.
Yet not to thy eternal resting place,
Shalt thou retire alone-nor couldst thou
wish
Couch more extravagant. Thou shalt lie
down
kings,
The powerful of the ear h, 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 pcnsive Quietness between;
The venerable woods; rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks
That make the meadow green; and poured
around all.
Old oceans Gray and melancholy waste,
Are but the spoken decorations all
or the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
Are shining on the sad abodcs 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
~ AAoA ailu Viz Ddltdil utscIL pierce,
Or, lose sthysclf in the continuous woods
here rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
Save its own dashing s-y yet the dead are there
And millions in those solitudcs, since first
The fight of years began. have laid them down
lE 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
Win 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 lavorlte phantom; Yet, all these shall
leave
Their mirth, and their enjoyments, and shall
come
And make their bed with thee.
AS the long train
OF ages glide away. the sons Of men.
The youth, i'll lifc's 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 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 ioin
The innumerable caravan that moves
10 the pale realms OF shade, where each shall
take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou so, not like the quarry slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and
soothed
Byan nnaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapcry Of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams