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, 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 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.
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.
This poem Bryant wrote when he was but seventeen years old. The young poet had been brought up on a Massachusetts farm, had studied at small schools and for seven months at Williams College; but he had read widely, and deeply, serious books. The poem is one of the greatest in American Literature.
TO A WATERFOWL.
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
WHITHER, midst falling dew,
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way?
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly seen against the crimson sky, Thy figure floats along.
Seek'st thou the plashy brink
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink On the chafed ocean side?
There is a Power whose care Teaches thy way along that pathless coast The desert and illimitable air
Lone wandering, but not lost.
All day thy wings have fanned,
At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere, Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, Though the dark night is near.
And soon that toil shall end;
Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend, Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest.
Thou 'rt gone! the abyss of heaven
Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, And shall not soon depart.
He, who, from zone to zone,
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright.
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