That trample her, and break their iron net. XXXV. But thou, my country, thou shalt never fall, The date of thy deep-founded strength, or tell dwell? THANATOPSIS. 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 ;— 24 Go forth, under the open sky, and list In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground, Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again, 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-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, 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 And millions in those solitudes, since first come, And make their bed with thee. As the long train |