Follow Thou Thy Choice.

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 By 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.

The Melancholy Days Are Come, The Saddest Of The Year, Of Wailing Winds, And Naked Woods And Meadows Brown And Sear.

[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.

Fairest Of All That Earth Beholds, The Hues That Live Among The Clouds, And Flush The Air, Lingering, And Deepening At The Hour Of Dews.

Much Has Seen Said Of The Wisdom Of Old Age. Old Age Is Wise, I Grant, For Itself, But Not Wise For The Community. It Is Wise In Declining New Enterprises, For It Has Not The Power Nor The Time To Execute Them; Wise In Shrinking From Difficulty, For It Has Not The Strength To Overcome It; Wise In Avoiding Danger, For It Lacks The Faculty Of Ready And Swift Action, By Which Dangers Are Parried And Converted Into Advantages. But This Is Not Wisdom For Mankind At Large, By Whom New Enterprises Must Be Undertaken, Dangers Met, And Difficulties Surmounted.