And now when comes the calm, mild day, As still such days will come, To call the squirrel and the bee From out their winter home; When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, Though all the trees are still, And twinkle in the smoky light The waters of the rill, The south wind searches for the flowers Whose fragrance late he bore, And sighs to find them in the wood And by the stream no more. And then I think of one who in Her youthful beauty died, The fair meek blossom that grew up And faded by my side; In the cold, moist earth we laid her, When the forest cast the leaf, And we wept that one so lovely Should have a life so brief. Yet not unmeet it was that one, Like that young friend of ours, So gentle and so beautiful, Should perish with the flowers. THE UNIVERSAL TOMB. [From _Thanatopsis_.] Yet not to thine eternal resting-place Shalt thou retire alone, nor could'st 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 sepulcher. The hills, Rock-ribb'd 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, traverse Barca's desert sands, 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 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. RALPH WALDO EMERSON. NATURE'S MINISTRY OF BEAUTY. [From _Nature_.]