William Cullen Bryant

OK Class,
Today we are discussing "Thantopsis" a poem by Bryant, not Kobe! It means a view of death. He teaches us that life is in fact a journey and it will end in death for us all. We get to return top the earth and sleep in little narrow boxes and in the same earth that great men and women has already been buried. I am having my class memorize the last Stanza because I like it. It reads:

So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan which moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take	75
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	80
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

I like it as he challenges us all to enjoy our lives,live courageously and then settle down to a non-regretting "couch" that lies adorned in the great splendor of the world.  Now you might think I am going bonkers and worried about death. Quite the contrary I am excited about his poetry which romanticizes the not not so subtle terror of death. You should read "The Waterfowl" as well as it is an allegory of life and how we are steered by an unknown Power from birth to yeah yeah yeah I know   Death. I have been teaching his poetry for a while and became fascinated by it last week as I bored my junior English class to-----------------------yes you guessed it----death.