“Thanatopsis” Summary

“Thanatopsis” Themes

• 

  The Inevitability of Death

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• 

  The Unity of Nature

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• 

  Finding Peace in Death and Nature

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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Thanatopsis”

• Lines 1-5

      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,

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 5-11

  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,

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 11-17

  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—

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 18-23

                                         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.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 23-27

  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 for ever with the elements,

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 28-31

  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.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 32-38

       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.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 38-43

     The hills
  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;

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 43-46

  and, poured round all,
  Old Ocean’s gray and melancholy waste,—
  Are but the solemn decorations all
  Of the great tomb of man.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 46-51

  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.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 51-55

  —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:

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 56-61

  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?

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 61-67

  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.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 67-73

  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.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 74-79

       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,

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 79-82

  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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“Thanatopsis” Symbols

• 

  Rocks and Dirt

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  Celestial Objects

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“Thanatopsis” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• Alliteration

  

  

  

  

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• Assonance

  

  

  

  

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• Consonance

  

  

  

  

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• Allusion

  

  

  

  

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• Personification

  

  

  

  

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• Metaphor

  

  

  

  

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• Simile

  

  

  

  

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• Caesura

  

  

  

  

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• Polysyndeton

  

  

  

  

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• Enjambment

  

  

  

  

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• Imagery

  

  

  

  

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• Epanalepsis

  

  

  

  

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“Thanatopsis” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Thanatopsis
• Communion
• Forms
• Various Language
• Gayer
• Musings
• Sympathy
• Ere
• Blight
• Thy
• Shroud
• Pall
• Narrow House
• Thee
• All-Beholding
• Course
• Image
• Thou
• Elements
• Insensible
• Sluggish clod
• Rude swain
• Share
• Abroad
• Couldst
• Patriarch
• Infant world
• Hoary seers
• Sepulchre
• Rock-ribbed
• Vales
• Venerable
• Complaining Brooks
• Waste
• Host of Heaven
• Abodes
• Lapse
• Barcan
• Rolls
• Oregon
• Dashings
• Solitudes
• Laid them down
• Brood of Care
• Phantom
• Mirth
• Employments
• Train
• Matron
• Maid
• Summons
• Caravan
• Chamber
• Quarry-slave
• Scourge
• Unfaltering
• Drapery

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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Thanatopsis”

• Form

• Meter

• Rhyme Scheme

“Thanatopsis” Speaker

“Thanatopsis” Setting

Literary and Historical Context of “Thanatopsis”

More “Thanatopsis” Resources

• External Resources

  • "The Grave" by Robert Blair — The full text of "The Grave," a poem by Graveyard Poet Robert Blair. Published in 1743, this is one of the poems that inspired "Thanatopsis."

  • A Biography of Bryant — A detailed biography of William Cullen Bryant, as well as more poems, from the Poetry Foundation.

  • A Film Inspired by "Thanatopsis" — A short piece of experimental film inspired by "Thanatopsis." Directed by the sci-fi illustrator and film artist Ed Emshwiller.

  • A Reading of "Thanatopsis." — "Thanatopsis" read aloud.

  • Bryant's Life in Brief — This 1850 painting by Asher Brown Durand was inspired by Bryant's poem and currently hang's in New York's City's Metropolitan Museum of Art.

• LitCharts on Other Poems by William Cullen Bryant

  • To a Waterfowl