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;--
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 mold.
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,
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, pierce the Barcan wilderness,
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 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
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glides away, the sons of men--
The youth in life's fresh spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man--
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side,
By those, who in their turn, shall follow them.
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.

--William Cullen Bryant

One of the most prominent poets from the Romanticism era, William Cullen Bryant is responsible for translating the messages of English Romanticism into something new and American. He gave Romantic poems a new voice. This is clearly evident in one of his many works, "Thanatopsis." This poem illustrates many Romantic qualities: it shuns the artificiality of civilization and seeks unspoiled nature, it contemplates nature's beauty as a path to spiritual and moral development, and it finds beauty and truth within exotic locales.

In "Thanatopsis," Bryant is looking to nature for a lesson about life and death. He tells the reader "When thoughts/Of the last bitter hour come like a blight... Go forth, under the open sky, and list/To Nature's teachings..." He believes nature will help guide its listener to an understanding of the cycle of life, death and rebirth. Bryant is thus telling the reader to shun civilization and pay attention to the teachings of nature.

While Bryant wants the reader to listen to nature's teachings, he also wants him to contemplate nature's beauty. By contemplating his surroundings, the reader is able to develop both spiritually and morally. The reader is able to see that everything returns from whence it came, and that he must live his life to its fullest so he does not have any regrets when he dies. Bryant offers comfort to the reader in that he is not dying alone ("Thou shalt lie down with... Kings... the wise, the good...") and that everyone is going to die eventually. The reader is able to learn this fact by contemplating nature's beauty. The reader is able to gain a better understanding of life and death.

So, by listening to nature's teachings and contemplating them, the reader quite obviously is able to gain important spiritual and moral truths. The reader learns these truths from unspoiled nature, in an exotic location: under the open sky, in the beauty of nature. Thus, by using his surroundings, the reader is able to arrive at certain truths about life and death.

William Cullen Bryant was clearly a Romantic poet, just in his use of imagery and nature in all of his poems. His poems also illustrate the Deist philosophy, which states that divinity can be found within nature. "Thanatopsis" plainly shows that truth can be found in the unspoiled beauty of nature.

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