| 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 | 5 |
| 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 | 10 |
| 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— | 15 |
| 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, | 20 |
| 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 | 25 |
| 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 mould. | 30 |
| 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, | 35 |
| 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 | 40 |
| 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, | 45 |
| 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 | 50 |
| 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 | 55 |
| 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 | 60 |
| 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 | 65 |
| 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, | |
| The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man— | 70 |
| 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 | 75 |
| 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 | 80 |
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
see also "Song of the Stars"
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