Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/794

 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

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 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 sepukhrc. The hills Rock-ribb'd 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, pour'd round all, Old Ocean's grey and melancholy Waste, Arc but the solemn decorations all Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, Arc 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 Jose thyself m 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

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