“Thanatopsis”

By William Cullen Bryant

Published in 1871, "Thanatopsis" is one of the earliest poems written by the nineteenth-century American poet William Cullen Bryant. As a
17-year-old, Bryant wanted to communicate his ideas on death through poetry. Thanatopsis is a Greek term that means “meditation on” or
“contemplation of death,” and the poem is an “elegy” (a poem of serious reflection) that attempts to console humans, given that everyone
eventually has to die. Read the poem and annotate for the rhetorical choices (imagery, personification, type of diction, rhetorical questions, and
tonal shifts) Bryant makes to convey his comforting perspective on death. Focus on how he transforms a morbid topic and elevates it to a
meditation on nature and mortality.

To him who in the love of Nature holds Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
A various language; for his gayer hours Thine individual being, shalt thou go
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile To mix for ever with the elements,
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides To be a brother to the insensible rock
Into his darker musings, with a mild And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
And healing sympathy, that steals away Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight Yet not to thine eternal resting-place
Over thy spirit, and sad images Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, With patriarchs of the infant world—with kings,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;— The powerful of the earth—the wise, the good,
Go forth, under the open sky, and list Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
To Nature’s teachings, while from all around— All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air— Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun,—the vales
Comes a still voice— Stretching in pensive quietness between;
Yet a few days, and thee The venerable woods—rivers that move
The all-beholding sun shall see no more In majesty, and the complaining brooks
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground, That make the meadows green; and, poured round all,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears, Old Ocean’s gray and melancholy waste,—
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist Are but the solemn decorations all
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
 The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Are shining on the sad abodes of death, Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread And make their bed with thee. As the long train
The globe are but a handful to the tribes Of ages glide away, the sons of men,
That slumber in its bosom.—Take the wings The youth in life’s green spring, and he who goes
Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness, In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man—
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound, Shall one by one be gathered to thy side,
Save his own dashings—yet the dead are there: By those, who in their turn shall follow them.
And millions in those solitudes, since first So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The flight of years began, have laid them down The innumerable caravan, which moves
In their last sleep—the dead reign there alone. To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
So shalt thou rest, and what if thou withdraw His chamber in the silent halls of death,
In silence from the living, and no friend Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
Plod on, and each one as before will chase About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.