Page:Poems (Bryant, 1821).djvu/51



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,

The bow’d with age, the infant in the smiles

And beauty of its innocent age cut off,—

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, that moves

To the pale realms of shade, 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 sustain’d and sooth’d

By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,

Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch

About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.