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 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. 
—­Bryant.

Notes.—­Thanatopsis is composed of two Greek words, thanatos, meaning death, and opsis, a view.  The word, therefore, signifies a view of death, or reflections on death.

Barca is in the northeastern part of Africa:  the southern and eastern portions of the country are a barren desert.

The Oregon (or Columbia) River is the most important river of the United States emptying into the Pacific.  The Lewis and Clark Expedition (1803-1806) had first explored the country through which it flows only five years before the poem was written.

LXXVI.  INDIAN JUGGLERS. (278)