Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1878-07-11
rHIANATOPSIS.
EY WILLIAM CULLEN ERl ANT.

70 him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with Ler visible forms, she speaks
4 various language: for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and q smile
And cOquence OF beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings, with mild
And healing 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 breathIess Darkness and the narrow h0llsc.
Make tnce to shudder, and grow sick at heart
60 forth. under the open sky, and list
TO snG 5ar aMd wae e Genhs h Of
Comes a still voce-yet few days, and thee
The all behOdng shall sec 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,
Aud lost each human trace. surrenderlng up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix forever with the elements,
To be a brother to the nsensiblc 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 mold
Yet not to thine eternal resting place
Shalt thou retire alone. nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarch of the infant world-with kings,
The powerful of the carth-the wise, the good,
Fair FORMS and hOary seers OF ages past,
All IN one mighty sepu!cher. The hills.
Nck ribbed and ancient as the sun-the wales
Seching in pensive quietness between;
Evcnerable wOOds-rivers that move
hmajesty 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 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 it's bosom. Take the wings
OF morning, traverse Barcas desert sands,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound,
Save his own dashings-yet-- 1.-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 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 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 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.
olive that when thy summons comes to Join
The innumerable caravan which moves
Tohat mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry slave at night,
Scourgcd to his dungeon, but sustained and sOOthed
By all unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery OF his couch
About him and lies down to pleasant dreams.