Thanatopsis: Bryant's Meditation On Death

About 200 years ago, William Cullen Bryant, wrote a long-lived famous poem, Thanatopsis, from Greek Thanatos—Death plus Opsis—View.

In the memoirs of my mother was a box containing her means of living the story of her family, with a collection of obits and news articles of their deaths, going back perhaps 100 years.

One of my favorite uncles, and her favorite brother, was Albert Wallach, of Fenton. He served as a balloon person in France in WWI, then came home to attend college in Cape, becoming captain of the football team in 1922. After a career in business, he became what started in college, as a noted orator, and his fame allowed him the access to making hundreds of speeches at various functions and honors.

So in my set of memoirs from my mother was her clipping of a news column that announced his death with the following ending of the column:

"Al often used a quotation from Thanatopsis during his public speaking engagement. It is appropriate to use it here."

'So live, that when the summons comes to join the innumerable caravan which moves on to that realm where each shall take his chamber in the silent halls of death, thou go not, as a quarry-slave, scourged to the dungeon; but, sustain'd and soothed by an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, as one who calmly wraps the drapery of his couch about him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.'

"Pleasant dreams, Al, and God speed. May your soul rest in peace."

This poem has caused much study over the past 200 years, and while famous in its complicated nature, it generally means that while the earthly body has been interred, the spiritual soul keeps readers occupied until all meet again.  

My mother spent her late years, clipping and reading, and probably at the same time praying, for those she had a visual memory of.

Thanks for sharing this with me.