T

THANATOPSIS

O him who in the love of

Nature holds

Communion with her visible form, 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 nourished thee, shall claim

Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,

And, lost each human trace, surrender

ing up

Thine individual being, shalt thou go

To mix forever 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 worldwith 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 vales

Stretching in pensive quietness between; The venerable woods-rivers that move In majesty, and the complaining brooks That make the meadows green; and, poured round all,

Old Ocean's 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.

tread

All that

The globe are but a handful to the tribes

That slumber in its bosom.-Take the

wings

Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilder

ness,

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 favorite 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 menThe youth in life's fresh 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,