Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1902-01-17
THANATOPSIS.

i,..0 ,s s.- 80 att,i aj'|
HOO him who in the love of nature holds
~ Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
various language for his gayer hours
y She has a voice of gladness and smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she gides
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 breathess darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at hearth
Go forth, under the open sky, and list
To Natures teachings while from all around
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air.
Comes still voice-Yet few days, and thee
The all-behoding shall see 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 nourshed thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again.
And, lost each human trace, surrenderng up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix forever with the elements,
To be brother to the nsensibe 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 aone,-nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant word-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
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun; the wales
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods; rivers that move
In majesty and the complaining brooks
That make meadows green; and poured round all,
Old oceans gray and melancholy waste
Are but the solemn decorations all
OF the great tomb of 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 sumber in its bosom.-Take the wings
Of morning, traverse Barcas desert sands,
Or lose myself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
Save his dashings-yet-the dead are there;
And millions in those sotudes, since first
The flight 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 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 fe'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 innumerable 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 his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfalterng trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams