William Cullen Bryant Thanatopsis Reflection

The poem Thanatopsis translates into "View of Death" and this poem is all about mortality and coming to terms with death (Huff). The poem begins with light and airy just like a child's life and their worries about death. They have no worries about death it is just a thing that happens to others."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" (Bryant 1). The beauty of life is precious and it will eventually end just like nature goes though life so do the trees and other wildlife. The speaker of the poem does not believe that death will come to him at the beginning but towards the end he sees his death and almost welcomes it because he has come to terms with the ending of time. This romantic period presents the beauty of life even in the face of death. "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" (Bryant 21). This description of the beautiful Earth and the fact that this is were you will die and be buried in the ground or in the sea does not seem so dark and scary the way the Romantic writers present it.

The darkness of the narrow house that the will soon be everyone's final resting place could have been written simple as a coffin (Huff). This lighter version of a person's final resting place being a house is more friendly than the darkness of a a small box made of wood.

"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"(Bryant 31).

The poem also express the equality of death and that everyone will eventually rest here and that even the mightiest, and wealthiest can not escape death. The equality of the death among everyone makes the Earth the collective crypt and this brings the idea of the dead being buried everywhere (Huff). Death is part of the circle of life and each person will come to face it but it many different ways. We die just as the trees and animals do it is part of the circle that never ends. Once you die you become a part of the ground and that ground grows plants and animals eat plants. These plant eating animals will be eaten by bigger animals or will die and eventually the one's eating the smaller animals will die and the circle of life starts again. Thanatopsis is a life poem with the descriptive elements and beauty that is the Romantic period even when discussing the darkest of topics.

"16. Thanatopsis. William Cullen Bryant. Yale Book of American Verse." Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics and Hundreds More. Web. 27 Nov. 2011.

Huff, Randall. "'Thanatopsis'." The Facts On File Companion to American Poetry, vol. 1. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2007. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.