# Thanatopsis and The Snow Shower



## atlashunter (Jul 2, 2019)

A while back was discussing death with an older relative who also happens to be a non-believer. She shared these poems with me which I really enjoyed reading and wanted to share. Both are by William Cullen Bryant.

*Thanatopsis*

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, 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, 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—

                                       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. 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,  
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.  

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

    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, 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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## atlashunter (Jul 2, 2019)

*The Snow-Shower*

Stand here by my side and turn, I pray,
   On the lake below, thy gentle eyes;
The clouds hang over it, heavy and gray,
   And dark and silent the water lies;
And out of that frozen mist the snow
In wavering flakes begins to flow;
                            Flake after flake
They sink in the dark and silent lake.

See how in a living swarm they come
   From the chambers beyond that misty veil;
Some hover awhile in air, and some
   Rush prone from the sky like summer hail.
All, dropping swiftly or settling slow,
Meet, and are still in the depths below;
                            Flake after flake
Dissolved in the dark and silent lake.

Here delicate snow-stars, out of the cloud,
   Come floating downward in airy play,
Like spangles dropped from the glistening crowd
   That whiten by night the milky way;
There broader and burlier masses fall;
The sullen water buries them all–
                            Flake after flake–
All drowned in the dark and silent lake.

And some, as on tender wings they glide
   From their chilly birth-cloud, dim and gray,
Are joined in their fall, and, side by side,
   Come clinging along their unsteady way;
As friend with friend, or husband with wife,
Makes hand in hand the passage of life;
                            Each mated flake
Soon sinks in the dark and silent lake.

Lo! while we are gazing, in swifter haste
   Stream down the snows, till the air is white,
As, myriads by myriads madly chased,
They fling themselves from their shadowy height.
   The fair, frail creatures of middle sky,
What speed they make, with their grave so nigh;
                            Flake after flake,
To lie in the dark and silent lake!

I see in thy gentle eyes a tear;
   They turn to me in sorrowful thought;
Thou thinkest of friends, the good and dear,
   Who were for a time, and now are not;
Like these fair children of cloud and frost,
That glisten a moment and then are lost,
                            Flake after flake–
All lost in the dark and silent lake.

Yet look again, for the clouds divide;
   A gleam of blue on the water lies;
And far away, on the mountain-side,
   A sunbeam falls from the opening skies,
But the hurrying host that flew between
The cloud and the water, no more is seen;
                            Flake after flake,
At rest in the dark and silent lake.


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## ambush80 (Jul 6, 2019)

Imagine someone who believes that they will rise from the dead and live eternally in Paradise.  I imagine that these poems would be depressing to them and give them no comfort. Sometimes I wonder how I might face death in my final moments.  If believing in some fantasy might give me comfort or peace in those final moments, what does it matter if it's not really real?  I can't take my dignity or my principles with me. What does it matter if in those final moments I convince myself that I'm going to Nirvana or Heaven or the Big Rock Candy Mountain and it gives me comfort and peace?  I do still recognize the problems that those beliefs create for people trying to figure out how to live and interact with each other in the real world. That's kind of my new project, to figure out a relacement for those irrational beliefs that has the same instructive properties without any of the mysticism.  

The second one seems Buddhist in that the snowflakes return to "The Oneness" to get recycled.


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## atlashunter (Jul 6, 2019)

ambush80 said:


> Imagine someone who believes that they will rise from the dead and live eternally in Paradise.  I imagine that these poems would be depressing to them and give them no comfort. Sometimes I wonder how I might face death in my final moments.  If believing in some fantasy might give me comfort or peace in those final moments, what does it matter if it's not really real?  I can't take my dignity or my principles with me. What does it matter if in those final moments I convince myself that I'm going to Nirvana or Heaven or the Big Rock Candy Mountain and it gives me comfort and peace?  I do still recognize the problems that those beliefs create for people trying to figure out how to live and interact with each other in the real world. That's kind of my new project, to figure out a relacement for those irrational beliefs that has the same instructive properties without any of the mysticism.
> 
> The second one seems Buddhist in that the snowflakes return to "The Oneness" to get recycled.



There is a recycling factor in both poems. I find beauty in that. Reminds me of Lawrence Krauss explaining the math and science behind the claim that every breath we breath contains a few atoms from Caesar’s dying breath. There is a connectedness there between us and everyone that has ever lived and ever will live. It’s humbling to know that I’m not eternal. That a time is coming in the near future I will come to an eternal end and everything will go on without me as though I had never existed. And yet I did and was some small part of something much greater.

I guess it can be depressing but why should it be? Perhaps if we overestimate our own importance in the universe or set unrealistic expectations. Any time our perceptions are out of line with reality it can cause distress. That also ties in with eastern philosophy and perhaps also stoicism that attributes mental distress to unrealistic expectations. If I have realistic expectations then I can let go because then I can realize and accept my mortality. I don’t suppose there is any harm in using delusion as a coping mechanism to face death in your final moments. If that reduces your suffering then perhaps that is the way to go. But I’m not sure it’s the only or even the best way to face death.


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## ambush80 (Jul 6, 2019)

atlashunter said:


> There is a recycling factor in both poems. I find beauty in that. Reminds me of Lawrence Krauss explaining the math and science behind the claim that every breath we breath contains a few atoms from Caesar’s dying breath. There is a connectedness there between us and everyone that has ever lived and ever will live. It’s humbling to know that I’m not eternal. That a time is coming in the near future I will come to an eternal end and everything will go on without me as though I had never existed. And yet I did and was some small part of something much greater.
> 
> I guess it can be depressing but why should it be? Perhaps if we overestimate our own importance in the universe or set unrealistic expectations. Any time our perceptions are out of line with reality it can cause distress. That also ties in with eastern philosophy and perhaps also stoicism that attributes mental distress to unrealistic expectations. If I have realistic expectations then I can let go because then I can realize and accept my mortality. I don’t suppose there is any harm in using delusion as a coping mechanism to face death in your final moments. If that reduces your suffering then perhaps that is the way to go. But I’m not sure it’s the only or even the best way to face death.



The biggest difference I see is the notion that we have a soul and that it's distinct and that it carries some semblance of our personality or consciousness with us to another dimension.  What I don't understand is that even  the deepest thinking deists accept this notion as real with what seems to me to little or no evidence besides the mention of the concept in their holy book.


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