1820

HYMN TO DEATH

by William Cullen Bryant

HYMN TO DEATH -

Oh! could I hope the wise and pure in heart

Might hear my song without a frown, nor deem

My voice unworthy of the theme it tries,-

I would take up the hymn to Death, and say

To the grim power, The world hath slandered thee

And mocked thee. On thy dim and shadowy brow

They place an iron crown, and call thee king

Of terrors, and the spoiler of the world,.

Deadly assassin, that strik'st down the fair,

The loved, the good- that breathest on the lights

Of virtue set along the vale of life,

And they go out in darkness. I am come,

Not with reproaches, not with cries and prayers,

Such as have stormed thy stern, insensible ear

From the beginning; I am come to speak

Thy praises. True it is, that I have wept

Thy conquests, and may weep them yet again,

And thou from some I love wilt take a life

Dear to me as my own. Yet while the spell

Is on my spirit, and I talk with thee

In sight of all thy trophies, face to face,

Meet it is that my voice should utter forth

Thy nobler triumphs; I will teach the world

To thank thee. Who are thine accusers?- Who?

The living!- they who never felt thy power,

And know thee not. The curses of the wretch

Whose crimes are ripe, his sufferings when thy hand

Is on him, and the hour he dreads is come,

Are writ among thy praises. But the good-

Does he whom thy kind hand dismissed to peace,

Upbraid the gentle violence that took off

His fetters, and unbarred his prison-cell? -

Raise then the hymn to Death. Deliverer!

God hath anointed thee to free the oppressed

And crush the oppressor. When the armed chief,

The conqueror of nations, walks the world,

And it is changed beneath his feet, and all

Its kingdoms melt into one mighty realm-

Thou, while his head is loftiest and his heart

Blasphemes, imagining his own right hand

Almighty, thou dost set thy sudden grasp

Upon him, and the links of that strong chain

Which bound mankind are crumbled; thou dost break

Sceptre and crown, and beat his throne to dust.

Then the earth shouts with gladness, and her tribes

Gather within their ancient bounds again.

Else had the mighty of the olden time,

Nimrod, Sesostris, or the youth who feigned

His birth from Libyan Ammon, smitten yet

The nations with a rod of iron, and driven

Their chariot o'er our necks. Thou dost avenge,

In thy good time, the wrongs of those who know

No other friend. Nor dost thou interpose

Only to lay the sufferer asleep,

Where he who made him wretched troubles not

His rest- thou dost strike down his tyrant too.

Oh, there is joy when hands that held the scourge

Drop lifeless, and the pitiless heart is cold.

Thou too dost purge from earth its horrible

And old idolatries;- from the proud fanes

Each to his grave their priests go out, till none

Is left to teach their worship; then the fires

Of sacrifice are chilled, and the green moss

O'ercreeps their altars; the fallen images

Cumber the weedy courts, and for loud hymns,

Chanted by kneeling multitudes, the wind

Shrieks in the solitary aisles. When he

Who gives his life to guilt, and laughs at all

The laws that God or man has made, and round

Hedges his seat with power, and shines in wealth,-

Lifts up his atheist front to scoff at Heaven,

And celebrates his shame in open day,

Thou, in the pride of all his crimes, cutt'st off

The horrible example. Touched by thine,

The extortioner's hard hand foregoes the gold

Wrung from the o'er-worn poor. The perjurer,

Whose tongue was lithe, e'en now, and voluble

Against his neighbor's life, and he who laughed

And leaped for joy to see a spotless fame

Blasted before his own foul calumnies,

Are smit with deadly silence. He, who sold

His conscience to preserve a worthless life,

Even while he hugs himself on his escape,

Trembles, as, doubly terrible, at length,

Thy steps o'ertake him, and there is no time

For parley, nor will bribes unclench thy grasp.

Oft, too, dost thou reform thy victim, long

Ere his last hour. And when the reveller,

Mad in the chase of pleasure, stretches on,

And strains each nerve, and clears the path of life

Like wind, thou point'st him to the dreadful goal,

And shak'st thy hour-glass in his reeling eye,

And check'st him in mid course. Thy skeleton hand

Shows to the faint of spirit the right path,

And he is warned, and fears to step aside.

Thou sett'st between the ruffian and his crime

Thy ghastly countenance, and his slack hand

Drops the drawn knife. But, oh, most fearfully