Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1899-08-24
THANATOPSIS.

4 L Il y 4 - Il
To him who in the love Of Nature holds
. Communion with her visible forms she speaks
various languages for his gayer hours
She has voice of gladness, and smile
And eloquence 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 aud Iall,
And GREATNESS darkness and the NARROW house
Make thee to shudder and grow sick at heart.
Go forth under the open sky and list
To Natures teachings, while from alIaround-
Earth and her waters and the depths Of air
Comes still voice. Yet few days land thee
The all-beholding sun shall more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground
Where thy pale form 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
70 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 mold
Yet not to thine eternal resting place
Shalt thou retire alone nor coudst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patrarchs of the infant world, with kings,
The powerful Of the earth-the wise, the good
Fair forms, and hoary of ages past,
All in mighty sepulcher The hills,
Rock-ribbed and ancient the sun, the wales
Stretching in pensive quietness between,
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 host of heaven,
Are shining the sad abodes of de;tln
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe but handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings
OF morning, pierce the Barcan Wilderness.
Or lose myself i'll the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon and hears sound
Save his dasnings-yet the dead are there;
And millions in those sotudes. since first
The flight Of years began, have laid them down
In their last seep-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 ofcare
Plod on, and each one, 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
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 innumerablc caravan which moves
TO that mysterious realm where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of DEATH
Thou 90 not like the quarry slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon; but sustained and soothed
BY an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like who wraps the drapery of his couch
Around him, and lies down to pleasant dreams
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT