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 for ever 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 mold.

       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 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 come
     And make their bed with thee.  As the long train
     Of ages glides away, the sons of men,—­
     The youth in life’s