The times. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1890-1903, 1902-01-26

To him who in the love of Nature, holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
a various language: for his gayer hours
She has voice of gadness and smile
And eloquence of beauty and she gldes
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 GREATNESS darkness, md the narrow house.
Make thee to s1udder and grow sick at heart,
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 al-beholding sun 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 nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again;
And, lost each human trace, surrenderng up
Thine Individual being, shalt thou 60
To mix forever with the elements;
To be 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 mould.
Yet not to thine eternal resting place
Shalt thou retire alone-nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent Thou shalt lie down
With patrarchs of the infant world-wth 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 quetness 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 on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages All that tread
The g,obe are but handful to the tribes
That slunber in its bosom. Take the wings
Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness,
Or lose myself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon and hears no sound
Save his own dashngs-yet the dead are there!
And millions in those solitudes, 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 departure3 All that breathe
VIII share thy destiny The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Pod on, and each one as before will chase
His favorite phantom yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their euploynents, and shall come
And make their bed with thee. AS the long train
OF ages glides away, the sons of men
Ihe youth IN life green spring. and he who goes
In the full strength of years, natron 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 innu,nerabe caravan that moves
To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of DEATH
Thou go not like the quarry slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soohed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery OF his couch
About him. and lies down to pleasant dreams.