Whose music up the deep and dewy air Swells to the clouds, and calls on Echo there, Till a new melody is born

Wake, wake again, the night

Is bending from her throne of beauty down,
With still stars burning on her azure crown,
Intense, and eloquently bright.

Night, at its pulseless noon!

When the far voice of waters mourns in song, And some tired watch-dog, lazily and long, Barks at the melancholy moon.

Hark! how it sweeps away, Soaring and dying on the silent sky,

As if some sprite of sound went wandering by, With lone halloo and roundelay!

THANATOPSIS.

Swell, swell in glory out!

Thy tones come pouring on my leaping heart,
And my stirred spirit hears thee with a start
As boyhood's old remembered shout.

Oh! have ye heard that peal,

From sleeping city's moon-bathed battlements,
Or from the guarded field and warrior tents,
Like some near breath around you steal?

Or have ye in the roar

Of sea, or storm, or battle, heard it rise,
Shriller than eagle's clamor, to the skies,
Where wings and tempests never soar?

Go, go-no other sound,

No music that of air or earth is born,
Can match the mighty music of that horn,
On midnight's fathomless profound!

THANATOPSIS.

BY W. C. BRYANT.

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

45

46

THANATOPSIS

Into his darker musings, with a mild
And gentle 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 mould. Yet not to thy 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,

THANATOPSIS.

47

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-and the Barcan desert pierce,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregan, 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 shalt fall
Unheeded by 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

48.

SUNSHINE AND STORM.

Their mirth and their employments, and shall come,
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,
And the sweet babe, and the gray-headed man,—
Shall one by one be gatherered to thy side,
By those, who in their turn shall follow them.
So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan, that 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.

SUNSHINE AND STORM.

Look upon those clouds that lie
Pillowed on the far-off sky,
So resplendent and serene,
That they hardly dim its sheen;
Look upon the sparkling deep,
Where the golden sunbeams sleep,
And across the waters bright
Braid their quivering lines of light.