The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1878-07-20
THANATOPsIs.
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 a smile
And eloqnence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings, with mind
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Ihclr sharpness, ere he is aware. When
thoughts
OF the last bitter hour come like O 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, unto the open sky, and list
TO natures teachings, while from all
Earth and her waters, and the depth of air
Comes still voioe-Yet few days, and thee
The all beholding sun shall see no more
In all her 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
Thy individual being, shalt thou go
To mix forever with the elements,
To be q 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
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 sepulehre. The hills
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun-the
wales
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable wo0ds-rivers that move
Ia 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 plants, 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 the tribes
That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings
OF morning, and the Barcan desert pierce,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound,
Save his own dashings dead are
there;
And millions in those solitndes, since first
The flight OF years began, have laid them
down
In their last sieep-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 departure2 All that breathe
VIII share thy destiny. The gay viii laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of
Plod on, and each one as before will chase
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall
leave
Their mirth and their employments. and
shall aOme
And make their beds with thee. AS the long
train
Of ages glides away, the sons of men,
The youth in life's green spring, and lie who
In the full strength of years-matron, and
maid,
And the sweet babe, and the gray-headed
Shall one by one he gathered to thy side,
By those. who i'll their turn shall follow
them.
So live, that when thy summons comes to
ioip
The Immortal caravan which moves
To the pale realms of shade, where each
shall take
His chamber in the silent lalls of death,
Thou go not, like the qua rry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but sustained and
soothed
Like one who wraps the drapery of his
couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.