Thanatopsis.

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 a mild     And healing sympathy, that steals away     Their sharpness, e're 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, 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-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. All that tread     The globe are but a handful to the tribes     That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings     Of morning, and the Barcan desert pierce,     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     Unheeded by 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 glide 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,     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 innumerable caravan, that 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, sustained 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.