The Mariner, whose eye is bright,
Whose beard with age is hoar,

Is gone; and now the Wedding Guest
Turned from the bridegroom's door.

He went like one that hath been stunned,
And is of sense forlorn;

A sadder and a wiser man

He rose the morrow morn.

THANATOPSIS

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

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 sepulcher. 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 glide away, the sons of men

The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes In the full strength of years, matron, and maid, And 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.

THE CROWDED STREET

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

LET me move slowly through the street,

Filled with an ever shifting train,

Amid the sound of steps that beat

The murmuring walks like autumn rain.

How fast the flitting figures come!

The mild, the fierce, the stony face-
Some bright with thoughtless smiles, and some
Where secret tears have left their trace.

They pass to toil, to strife, to rest,
To halls in which the feast is spread,
To chambers where the funeral guest
In silence sits beside the dead.

And some to happy homes repair,

Where children, pressing cheek to cheek,

With mute caresses shall declare

The tenderness they cannot speak.

And some, who walk in calmness here,
Shall shudder as they reach the door
Where one who made their dwelling dear,
Its flower, its light, is seen no more.

Youth, with pale cheek and slender frame,
And dreams of greatness in thine eye,
Go'st thou to build an early name,
Or early in the task to die?

Keen son of trade, with eager brow,
Who is now fluttering in thy snare?
Thy golden fortunes, tower they now,
Or melt the glittering spires in air?
Who of this crowd to-night shall tread
The dance till daylight gleam again?
Who sorrow o'er the untimely dead?
Who writhe in throes of mortal pain?

Some, famine-struck, shall think how long
The cold dark hours, how slow the light;
And some, who flaunt amid the throng,
Shall hide in dens of shame to-night.

Each where his tasks or pleasures call,
They pass, and heed each other not.
There is Who heeds, Who holds them all
In His large love and boundless thought.

These struggling tides of life, that seem
In wayward, aimless course to tend,

Are eddies of the mighty stream

That rolls to its appointed end.