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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, | 5 |
| 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 | 10 |
| 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 | 15 |
| Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again, | |
| And, lost each human trace, surrendering up | |
| Thine individual being, shalt thou go | |
| To mix for ever with the elements, | |
| To be a brother to the insensible rock | 20 |
| 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 | 25 |
| 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…. | 30 |
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| 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 | 35 |
| Plod on, and each one as before will chase | |
| His favourite 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, | 40 |
| The youth in life’s green spring, and he who goes | |
| In the full strength of years, matron, and maid, | |
| And the sweet babe, and the grey-headed man— | |
| Shall one by one be gathered to thy side, | |
| By those, who in their turn shall follow them. | 45 |
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| 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, | 50 |
| 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. | |
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