Bonners Ferry herald. [volume] (Bonners Ferry, Idaho) 1904-current, 1905-07-15
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Thanatopsts.
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 a voice Of gladness, and a 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 and pail,
And breathless 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 all
Earth and her waters. and the depths
Comes still volce:-Yet n few days,
and thee
The all-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, surrendering
I'D
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix forever with the elements,
To be brother TO the insensible rock
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude
swain
Tuns with his share, and treads upon.
The oak
Shall yet send his roots abroad, and
pierce thy mold.
Yet not to thine eternal resting place
Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie
down
With patriarchs Of the infant world
with kings,
the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers Of ages past,
All In one mighty sspulchre. The hills
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun; the
wales
Stretching In pensivs 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 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
OF morning, pierce the Barcan wilder
ness,
Or lose myself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears ne
sound,
Save his own dashings-yet the dea,
are therel
And millions In those solitudes, since frs
The fight Of years began have laid then
down
In their last sleep-the dead reign Their,
alone!
SO shalt thou rest; and what II thou
withdraw
In silence from the living. and no frlen,
Take note Of thy departurel The ga!
will laugh
When thou art gone the solemn brood o
care
Plod on. and each one as before will
chase
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall
leave
Their mirth and their employments, an,
shall come
And make their bed with thee. As tn
long train
OF ages glide away, the sons Of men.
The youth In life's green spring, and h
who goes
In the full strength of year. matron an
maid.
The speeches. babe, and the gray-heade
man
Shall one by one be gathered to thy sid,
BY those. who In their turn shall folio,
them.
SO live, that when thy summons come
TO join
The innumerable caravan. which move
To that mysterious realm. where eac
shall
Take his chamber in silent halls Of death
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave a
night
Scourged to his dungeon. but, sustalne
and soothed
BY an unfalterlng trust, approach tn
grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery Of hi
couch
About him, and lies down to pleasar
dreams
William Cullen Bryant
A Cat that HunIa