Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant. Bryant William Cullen

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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 Barean 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 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 —

      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.