A gallery of famous English and American poets . f 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 forever with the elements. To be a brother to the insensible rock. And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain Turns with his sliare, and
A gallery of famous English and American poets . f 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 forever with the elements. To be a brother to the insensible rock. And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain Turns with his sliare, and treads upon. The oak Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould. Yet not to thine eternal resting-placeShalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wishCouch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie downWith patriarchs of the infant world—with king.«!,The powerful of the earth—the wise, the good,Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past, TIIANATOPSIS. 369 All in one mighty sepulchre. The hillsRock-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 oceans gray and melancholy waste,— Are but the solemn decorations all Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,^ 93 ^ 370 BRYANT. The planets, all the uifinite 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, traverse Barcas desert sands. Or lose thyself in the continuous vi^oods 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 wliat if thou withdraw In silence from the living, and no friend Take note of
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, booksu, booksubjectenglishpoetry
