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| 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 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, 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 share, and treads upon. The oak |
| Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mold. |
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| 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, 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. |
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| 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 men-- |
| The 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. |
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| 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, 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. |
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