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.

All that tread, The globe are but a handful to the tribes That slumber in its bosom.

[Thanatopsis] was written in 1817, when Bryant was 23. Had he died then, the world would have thought it had lost a great poet. But he lived on.

Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste.

I'm not scared of dying And I, don't really care If it' s peace you find in dying Well then, let the time be near.

Accordingly, death is a harbor of peace for the just, but is believed a shipwreck for the wicked.

O cool glad pasture; living tree, tall corn, Great cliff, or languid sloping sand, cold sea, Waves: river curving; you, eternal flowers, Give me content, while…