William Cullen Bryant. 1794–1878
Bryant first wrote this poem when he was about 17, after reading the British "graveyard poets" (e.g. Thomas Gray, "Elegy
Written in a Country Churchyard" and Robert Blair, "The Grave") and William Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads. Bryant enlarged
"Thanatopsis" in 1821, 7 years later, adding the final injunction and giving the poem a kind of religious point.
Thanatopsis
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 mould.
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
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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 glide away, the sons of men,
The youth in life's green 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.
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One of the most prominent poets from the Romanticism era, William Cullen Bryant is
responsible for translating the messages of English Romanticism into something new and
American. He gave Romantic poems a new voice. This is clearly evident in one of his many
works, "Thanatopsis." This poem illustrates many Romantic qualities: it shuns the artificiality of
civilization and seeks unspoiled nature, it contemplates nature's beauty as a path to spiritual
and moral development, and it finds beauty and truth within exotic locales.
In "Thanatopsis," Bryant is looking to nature for a lesson about life and death. He tells the
reader "When thoughts/Of the last bitter hour come like a blight... Go forth, under the open
sky, and list/To Nature's teachings..." He believes nature will help guide its listener to an
understanding of the cycle of life, death and rebirth. Bryant is thus telling the reader to shun
civilization and pay attention to the teachings of nature.
While Bryant wants the reader to listen to nature's teachings, he also wants him to
contemplate nature's beauty. By contemplating his surroundings, the reader is able to develop
both spiritually and morally. The reader is able to see that everything returns from whence it
came, and that he must live his life to its fullest so he does not have any regrets when he dies.
Bryant offers comfort to the reader in that he is not dying alone ("Thou shalt lie down with...
Kings... the wise, the good...") and that everyone is going to die eventually. The reader is able to
learn this fact by contemplating nature's beauty. The reader is able to gain a better
understanding of life and death.
So, by listening to nature's teachings and contemplating them, the reader quite obviously is
able to gain important spiritual and moral truths. The reader learns these truths from unspoiled
nature, in an exotic location: under the open sky, in the beauty of nature. Thus, by using his
surroundings, the reader is able to arrive at certain truths about life and death.
William Cullen Bryant was clearly a Romantic poet, just in his use of imagery and nature in all of
his poems. His poems also illustrate the Deist philosophy, which states that divinity can be
found within nature. "Thanatopsis" plainly shows that truth can be found in the unspoiled
beauty of nature.
Old Ironsides
by Oliver Wendell Holmes
Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!
Long has it waved on high,
And many an eye has danced to see
That banner in the sky;
Beneath it rung the battle shout,
And burst the cannon's roar;
The meteor of the ocean air
Shall sweep the clouds no more!
Her deck, once red with heroes' blood,
Where knelt the vanquished foe,
When winds were hurrying o'er the flood
And waves were white below,
No more shall feel the victor's tread,
Or know the conquered knee;
The harpies of the shore shall pluck
The eagle of the sea!
Oh, better that her shattered hulk
Should sink beneath the wave;
Her thunders shook the mighty deep,
And there should be her grave;
Nail to the mast her holy flag,
Set every threadbare sail,
And give her to the God of storms,
The lightning and the gale!
In 1830, the U.S. Navy made plans to scrap the 44-gun frigate Constitution, the nation’s most celebrated
warship. Launched in 1797, “Old Ironsides” had earned her nickname during the War of 1812, defeating a
number of fabled British vessels including the HMS Guerièrre. Though the war as a whole ended
indecisively, from it the young republic drew many symbols of its recent independence. One such symbol
was “The Star Spangled Banner,” written in 1814 to memorialize the shelling of Fort McHenry. Another
symbol profound to many Americans was the Constitution itself, which represented the nation’s freedom
on the seas, an issue that had initially sparked the conflict with the British. When the young Holmes read
a Boston newspaper account of the proposed dismantling of the Constitution in 1830, he penned “Old
Ironsides,” a sentimental poem remembered mostly for its role in saving the frigate from decommission.
In the poem, Holmes offers emotional reminiscences of the ship’s past glory, of her deck “red with
heroes’ blood” and of her “victor’s tread.” In the last stanza, which makes the leap to the universal theme
of death, Holmes insists that the frigate’s most fitting grave is “beneath the waves,” that she should be
given “to the god of storms” rather than suffer the ignoble fate of the scrapheap. Although the present-day
reader might find the poem’s patriotic tone a bit maudlin, “Old Ironsides” still provides a good example
of poetry’s ability to sway public sentiment: the Constitution was preserved in 1830 and again several
times subsequently, and today students of poetry and history alike can find her docked just north of
Boston, the U.S. Navy’s oldest commissioned vessel.
Poem Summary
Lines 1-4
The first stanza meditates on the ship’s “ensign,” or the naval flag that flies upon its mast, as a symbol of
the Constitution herself. Though not invented by Holmes, “Old Ironsides” is a metaphorical nickname —
ironclad vessels did not come into use until the Civil War — and like the “tattered” flag, the ship has
survived much adversity. Also like the flag (“Long has it waved on high”), the ship occupies a lofty
position — not physically, of course, but in the imagination. Because of its role in history, the
Constitution is in the national consciousness a symbol for the “higher” virtues for which the republic is
thought to stand. One such virtue is freedom, and in the early days of the United States the concept of
freedom was closely associated with the two wars against Britain. Thus the ship is an important symbol to
the many Americans whose eyes have “danced to that banner in the sky.”
Lines 5-8
In lines 5 and 6 the flag aloft is contrasted with sounds of battle below. These sounds are conveyed
through the use of alliteration, or the repetition of initial consonant sounds as in “beneath,” “battle” and
“burst.” By using this sonic device, Holmes appeals directly to the senses, helping the reader not only to
understand but to feel the contrast between the symbolically significant flag and the visceral reality of
those battles that helped preserve the nation. Having done this, Holmes appeals to the reader’s emotions,
lamenting the passing of the symbol: the flag “shall sweep the clouds no more!”
Lines 9-16
Again note the alliteration in lines 11 and 12. As in the first stanza, the device is used here to convey the
sounds and feel of the sea: the “winds” and the “waves .... white below.” But while in the first stanza the
poet employs sound to enhance a philosophical contrast, in these lines the intent of both sound and image
is primarily emotional. The images presented are highly romanticized — the “heroes’ blood,” the
“vanquished knee,” the “victor’s tread” — and their appeal is directly to the reader’s patriotic heart.
Philosophy here barely invades the domain of sentimentality and only in the most simplistic way: Holmes
compares a past full of glory with a future in which that glory will be “no more.” Finally, the poet takes
direct and emotional aim at those officials behind the proposed scrapping of the Constitution, calling them
“harpies of the shore,” (foul malevolent creatures from Greek mythology that are part women and part
bird) who wish to “pluck the eagle of the sea.” Since the eagle was at that time and is still a symbol of the
United States, and since to “pluck” a bird is to rob it of its grandeur, the implication of lines 9 and 10 is
that those who want to dismantle the Constitution are in fact unpatriotic. This is intended to raise the
reader’s indignation as well as to give that indignation a specific target.
Lines 17-24
In these lines the poem takes a romantic twist. Rather than suggest that “Old Ironsides” be preserved, as
the reader might expect, Holmes proposes that a fitting “grave” for the ship is the sea itself, the “mighty
deep” that the Constitution’s “thunder shook.” In this manner the poem takes on a more universal theme:
since death is inevitable, it is better to die as one lived rather than to have life prolonged by artificial or
unnatural means. This philosophy seems to have reached beyond Holmes’s poetry: as a noted physician
and medical essayist, he later opposed the overuse of drugs to keep patients alive and advocated letting
nature run its course. In the final lines, the poem shifts to the imperative and takes on a spiritual
resonance. Holmes commands the reader to “nail to the mast her holy flag” and to “give her to the god of
storms.” The implication is that the manner of death, like the manner in which we live life, is a
combination of divine intent and free will, the former demanding faith but the latter requiring action.