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 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. Being turned back to earth again does not seem so terrible when we think that all must have the same fate. There is a suggestion of grandeur in the thought that George Washington, King Solomon, Sir Isaac Newton, Napoleon—all lie in the same bed which Nature, the all-ruling, everlasting power, has provided. 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. When we reflect on how many have lived and died, the earth seems but one great tomb. There are said to be over 1,200,000,000 persons on the earth to-day. In a few years they will all have passed away, and others will have taken their places; and this change has been going on for thousands and thousands of years. In the graveyards of any city will be found but a few hundred or at most a few thousand graves; yet hundreds of thousands of people have died there and been buried. Where are their graves? Lost and forgotten.