{"id":87,"date":"2019-12-12T00:22:35","date_gmt":"2019-12-12T00:22:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-jefferson-english102\/chapter\/thanatopsis-american-literature-i\/"},"modified":"2019-12-13T17:01:28","modified_gmt":"2019-12-13T17:01:28","slug":"thanatopsis-american-literature-i","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-jefferson-english102\/chapter\/thanatopsis-american-literature-i\/","title":{"raw":"William Cullen Bryant, Thanatopsis","rendered":"William Cullen Bryant, Thanatopsis"},"content":{"raw":"
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\"Black<\/a>\u201cThanatopsis\u201d is a poem by the American poet William Cullen Bryant.<\/p>\r\n

The title comes from the Greek thanatos<\/i> (\u201cdeath\u201d) and opsis<\/i> (\u201csight\u201d); it has often been translated as \u201cMeditation upon Death.\u201d Bryant wrote the bulk of the poem in 1811 at age 17, and it was first published in 1817 by the North American Review.<\/i> He added the introductory and concluding lines 10 years later in 1821.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

To him who in the love of Nature holds\r\nCommunion with her visible forms, she speaks\r\nA various language; for his gayer hours\r\nShe has a voice of gladness, and a smile\r\nAnd eloquence of beauty, and she glides\r\nInto his darker musings, with a mild\r\nAnd healing sympathy, that steals away\r\nTheir sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts\r\nOf the last bitter hour come like a blight\r\nOver thy spirit, and sad images\r\nOf the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,\r\nAnd breathless darkness, and the narrow house,\r\nMake thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;\u2014\r\nGo forth, under the open sky, and list\r\nTo Nature\u2019s teachings, while from all around\u2014\r\nEarth and her waters, and the depths of air\u2014\r\nComes a still voice\u2014Yet a few days, and thee\r\nThe all-beholding sun shall see no more\r\nIn all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,\r\nWhere thy pale form was laid, with many tears,\r\nNor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist\r\nThy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim\r\nThy growth, to be resolved to earth again,\r\nAnd, lost each human trace, surrendering up\r\nThine individual being, shalt thou go\r\nTo mix for ever with the elements,\r\nTo be a brother to the insensible rock\r\nAnd to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain\r\nTurns with his share, and treads upon. The oak\r\nShall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.<\/p>\r\n

Yet not to thine eternal resting-place\r\nShalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish\r\nCouch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down\r\nWith patriarchs of the infant world\u2014with kings,\r\nThe powerful of the earth\u2014the wise, the good,\r\nFair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,\r\nAll in one mighty sepulchre. The hills\r\nRock-ribbed and ancient as the sun,\u2014the vales\r\nStretching in pensive quietness between;\r\nThe venerable woods\u2014rivers that move\r\nIn majesty, and the complaining brooks\r\nThat make the meadows green; and, poured round all,\r\nOld Ocean\u2019s gray and melancholy waste,\u2014\r\nAre but the solemn decorations all\r\nOf the great tomb of man. The golden sun,\r\nThe planets, all the infinite host of heaven,\r\nAre shining on the sad abodes of death,\r\nThrough the still lapse of ages. All that tread\r\nThe globe are but a handful to the tribes\r\nThat slumber in its bosom.\u2014- Take the wings\r\nOf morning, pierce the Barean wilderness,\r\nOr lose thyself in the continuous woods\r\nWhere rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound,\r\nSave his own dashings\u2014yet the dead are there:\r\nAnd millions in those solitudes, since first\r\nThe flight of years began, have laid them down\r\nIn their last sleep\u2014the dead reign there alone,\r\nSo shalt thou rest, and what if thou withdraw\r\nIn silence from the living, and no friend\r\nTake note of thy departure? All that breathe\r\nWill share thy destiny. The gay will laugh\r\nWhen thou art gone, the solemn brood of care\r\nPlod on, and each one as before will chase\r\nHis favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave\r\nTheir mirth and their employments, and shall come\r\nAnd make their bed with thee. As the long train\r\nOf ages glide away, the sons of men,\r\nThe youth in life\u2019s green spring, and he who goes\r\nIn the full strength of years, matron and maid,\r\nThe speechless babe, and the gray-headed man\u2014\r\nShall one by one be gathered to thy side,\r\nBy those, who in their turn shall follow them.<\/p>\r\n

So live, that when thy summons comes to join\r\nThe innumerable caravan, which moves\r\nTo that mysterious realm, where each shall take\r\nHis chamber in the silent halls of death,\r\nThou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,\r\nScourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed\r\nBy an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,\r\nLike one who wraps the drapery of his couch\r\nAbout him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.<\/p>\r\n

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