Thanatopsis

2 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  thanatopsis \than`a*top"sis\ (th[a^]n`[.a]*t[o^]p"s[i^]s), n.
     [NL., fr. Gr. qa`natos death + 'o`psis view.]
     A view of death; a meditation on the subject of death.
     --Bryant.
     [1913 Webster]



From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Thanatopsis \Than`a*top"sis\ (th[a^]n`[.a]*t[o^]p"s[i^]s), prop.
     n. [NL., fr. Gr. qa`natos death + 'o`psis view.]
     The title of a poem by William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878),
     meditating on the subject of death. One of Bryant's
     best-remembered poems, it was written in 1811 and was
     discovered and rushed to publication in 1817 (in the North
     American Review) by Bryant's father, originally without the
     poet's knowledge. A revised version was published in 1821. In
     this elegy Bryant reflects that death comes to all men,
     common and great, and that all eventually shall rest together
     in the "mighty sepulchre" of the earth.
     [PJC]
  
     Note: The text of the poem is as follows:
           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.
           [PJC]