And soon that toil shall end; Soon shalt thou find a summer home and rest, And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend, Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart He who, from zone to zone, Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, In the long way that I must tread alone, Will lead my steps aright. That noble poem, Thanatopsis, so full of Miltonic grandeur and harmony, was composed by Mr. Bryant, in his eighteenth year. Listen to its majestic lines:— To him who, in the love of Nature, holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks Of the stern agony, and shroud and pall, And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, What can be finer than the closing passage:— So live, that, when thy summons comes to join Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. A playful fancy pervades the following beautiful lines addressed to a bird, known to us by the name Bob-o-link : Merrily swinging on brier and weed, Near to the nest of his little dame, Over the mountain-side or mead, Robert of Lincoln is telling his name: "Bob-o-link, bob-o-link, spink, spank, spink; Hidden among the summer flowers: Chee, chee, chee." Robert of Lincoln is gayly drest, Wearing a bright black wedding-coat; "Bob-o-link, bob-o-link, spink, spank, spink; Chee, chee, chee." Robert of Lincoln's Quaker wife, Pretty and quiet, with plain brown wings, Passing at home a patient life, Broods in the grass while her husband sings— Chee, chee, chee." Modest and shy as a nun is she; One weak chirp is her only note. Catch me, cowardly knaves, if you can The Prairies :— Chee, chee, chee." * * These are the gardens of the Desert, these I behold them for the first, And my heart swells, while the dilated sight Takes in the encircling vastness. In airy undulations, far away, Lo! they stretch As if the ocean, in his gentlest swell, Stood still, with all his rounded billows fixed, No- they are all unchained again. The clouds Dark hollows seem to glide along and chase |