Thanatopsis

William Cullen Bryant

1794 to 1878

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Go forth, under the open sky, and list
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
Unheeded by the living—and no friend
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
A various language; for his gayer hours
To mix for ever with the elements,
Of ages glide away, the sons of men,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Sketching in pensive quietness between;
Plod on, and each one as before will chase
      Yet not to thine eternal resting-place
Where rolls the Oregan, and hears no sound,
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun,—the vales
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
     So live, that when thy summons comes to join
And millions in those solitudes, since first
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come,
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side,
The flight of years began, have laid them down
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
To him who in the love of nature holds
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
The venerable woods—rivers that move
To Nature's teachings, while from all around—
Are but the solemn decorations all
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
The powerful of the earth—the wise, the good,
The innumerable caravan, that moves
Shalt thou retire alone—nor couldst thou wish
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
In majesty, and the complaining brooks
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
     
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste,—
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
That slumber in its bosom.—Take the wings
Into his darker musings, with a mild
Save his own dashings—yet—the dead are there:
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
And the sweet babe, and the gray-headed man,—
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
All in one mighty sepulchre.—The hills
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
So shalt thou rest—and what if thou withdraw
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
Comes a still voice—
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,
His favourite phantom; yet all these shall leave
In the full strength of years, matron, and maid,
By those, who in their turn shall follow them.
With patriarchs of the infant world—with kings,
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
To be a brother to the insensible rock
The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
In their last sleep—the dead reign there alone.
That make the meadows green; and, poured round all,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;—
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
                                Yet a few days, and thee  
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air,—
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Of morning—and the Barcan desert pierce,