Analysis of Thanatopsis
William Cullen Bryant 1794 (Cummington) – 1878 (New York City)
To him who in the love of nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty; and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And healing sympathy that steals away
Their sharpness ere he is aware. 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,
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,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix forever with the elements,
To be a brother to the insensible rock
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 mold.
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
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 sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are 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 lose thyself in 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
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
Plod on, and each one as before will chase
His favorite 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 glides away, the sons of men--
The youth in life's fresh spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man--
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, 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,
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.
Scheme | XXXXXXXXAXXXXBCDXXCXBXEXXXXFXX GXHIXXXXXXXJXJKKLXXIXXCDXHX XXXXDGXXFEXXXXX XXXLAXXXX |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1110011101 01010100111 010010111010 110111001 0100110011 0111010101 0101001101 1101110111 10110101101 1011001100 1011000101 0101000101 1111001111 1110010101 1101011101 1001000111 1011101101 0101011111 0111110011 1111111101 10001110101 1101110111 1111011101 01110101001 1010010111 1101010100 110101001001 0101011011 1111010101 1111010111 1111010101 1101011111 1101001111 1101010111 01001010101 1101011101 10110101 1101010101 1001010001 0100011011 0100000101 110110111 110101001 110100101 1011110101 010101001110 110101111 1011110111 011101101 1100110101 110101100 1110001001 1101000111 111110111 01001111 0111011111 0111011101 1111011101 0101010011 1111010111 1111000111 1111010111 1101110111 11001011111 1101010011 0111111011 1101010111 0101110111 0011111001 0101001101 1111110111 1110111101 1111110111 0010001011 11010011111 1100010111 1111010111 1111010101 11110111 11110100111 0110111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 3,492 |
Words | 653 |
Sentences | 17 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 30, 27, 15, 9 |
Lines Amount | 81 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 695 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 162 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 24, 2023
- 3:16 min read
- 176 Views
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"Thanatopsis" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 5 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/40324/thanatopsis>.
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