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.
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
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 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 that moves
Earth, that nourished thee, shall To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin, Unhouseled, disappointed, unaneled ; No reckoning made, but sent to my account With all my imperfections on my head.
A death-bed 's a detector of the heart: Here tired dissimulation drops her mask,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.
Julius Cæsar, Act ii. Sc. 2.
CONVENTIONAL AND NATURAL.
Through life's grimace that mistress of the scene; Hark! from the tombs a doleful sound. Here real and apparent are the same.
Night Thoughts, Night ii.
A Funeral Thought, Book ii. Hymn 63. Whatever crazy sorrow saith,
No life that breathes with human breath Has ever truly longed for death.
Man makes a death which nature never made; Then on the point of his own fancy falls; And feels a thousand deaths, in fearing one. Night Thoughts.
So mayst thou live, till like ripe fruit thou drop Into thy mother's lap.
nothing can we call our own but death, And that small model of the barren earth Which serves as paste and cover to our bones. For heaven's sake, let us sit upon the ground, And tell sad stories of the death of kings.
Shakes off her wonted firmness.
Brave Percy, fare thee well! Ill-weaned ambition, how much art thou shrunk: When that this body did contain a spirit, A kingdom for it was too small a bound; But now, two paces of the vilest earth Is room enough.
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