THANATOPSIS
by: William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878)
- O 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 a mild
- And healing sympathy, that steals away
- Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts
- Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
- Over thy spirit, and sad images
- Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
- 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 Nature's teachings, while from all around--
- Earth and her waters, and the depths of air--
- Comes a still voice--Yet a 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 nourish'd thee, shall claim
- Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,
- And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
- Thine individual being, shalt thou go
- To mix for ever with the elements,
- To 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 mould.
- Yet not to thine eternal resting-place
- Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish
- Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
- With patriarchs of the infant world--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-ribb'd and ancient as the sun,--the vales
- Stretching in pensive quietness between;
- The venerable woods; rivers that move
- In majesty, and the complaining brooks
- That make the meadows green; and, pour'd round all,
- Old Ocean's grey 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 a handful to the tribes
- That slumber in its bosom.--Take the wings
- Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness,
- Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
- Where rolls the Oregon and hears no sound
- Save his own dashings--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 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 one as before will chase
- His favourite phantom; yet all these shall leave
- Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
- And make their bed with thee. As the long train
- Of ages glides away, the sons of men,
- The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes
- In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
- The speechless 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 to his dungeon; but, sustain'd and soothed
- By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
- Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
- About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
| "Thanatopsis" is reprinted from Yale Book of American Verse. Ed. Thomas R. Lounsbury. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1912. |
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