Truth Crushed To The Earth Will Rise

[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.

These Struggling Tides Of Life That Seem In Wayward, Aimless Course To Tend, Are Eddies Of The Mighty Stream That Rolls To Its Appointed End.

Go Forth Under The Open Sky, And List To Nature's Teachings.

I Gazed Upon The Glorious Sky And The Green Mountains Round, And Thought That When I Came To Lie At Rest Within The Ground, 'twere Pleasant, That In Flowery June When Brooks Send Up A Cheerful Tune, And Groves A Joyous Sound, The Sexton's Hand, My Grave To Make, The Rich, Green Mountain-turf Should Break.

Poetry Is The Eloquence Of Verse.