THANATOPSIS 1

To him who in the love of Nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she

speaks

Of the last bitter hour come like a blight Over thy spirit, and sad images

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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,

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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 40 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

O FAIREST OF THE RURAL MAIDS
O fairest of the rural maids!
Thy birth was in the forest shades;
Green boughs, and glimpses of the sky,
Were all that met thine infant eye.

Thy sports, thy wanderings, when a child,
Were ever in the sylvan wild;
And all the beauty of the place
Is in thy heart and on thy face.

The twilight of the trees and rocks
Is in the light shade of thy locks;
Thy step is as the wind, that weaves
Its playful way among the leaves.

Thine eyes are springs, in whose serene
And silent waters heaven is seen;
Their lashes are the herbs that look
On their young figures in the brook.

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Were but an element they loved. Bright clouds,

Motionless pillars of the brazen heavenTheir bases on the mountains-their white tops

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Shining in the far ether-fire the air With a reflected radiance, and make turn The gazer's eye away. For me, I lie Languidly in the shade, where the thick turf,

Yet virgin from the kisses of the sun, Retains some freshness, and I woo the wind

That still delays his coming. Why so slow,

Gentle and voluble spirit of the air? Oh, come and breathe upon the fainting earth

Coolness and life. Is it that in his caves He hears me? See, on yonder woody ridge,

The pine is bending his proud top, and

Fail not with weariness, for on their tops The beauty and the majesty of earth, Spread wide beneath, shall make thee to forget

The steep and toilsome way. There, as thou stand'st,

The haunts of men below thee, and around The mountain - summits, thy expanding heart

Shall feel a kindred with that loftier world

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To which thou art translated, and partake The enlargement of thy vision. Thou shalt look

Upon the green and rolling forest-tops, And down into the secrets of the glens,

1 The mountain called by this name is a remarkable precipice in Great Barrington, overlooking the rich and picturesque valley of the Housatonic, in the western part of Massachusetts. At the southern extremity is, or was a few years since, a conical pile of small stones, erected according to the tradition of the surrounding country, by the Indians, in memory of a young woman of the Stockbridge tribe who killed herself by leaping from the edge of the precipice. (Author's Note.)