TO him who, in the love of Nature, holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language; for his gayer hours She has a voice of gladness, and a smile And eloquence of beauty, and she glides Into his darker musings with a mild And healing sympathy, that steals away Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts Of the last bitter hour come like a blight Over thy spirit, and sad images 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. Earth, that nourish’d 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. 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, pour’d 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 its 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