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"Thanatopsis" was written by William Cullen Bryant—probably in 1813, when the poet was just 19. It is Bryant's most famous poem and has endured in popularity due its nuanced depiction of death and its expert control of meter, syntax, imagery, and other poetic devices. The poem gives voice to the despair people feel in contemplating death, then finds peace by viewing death as a harmonious part of nature.

• Read the full text of “Thanatopsis”

• “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,

  • 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,

  • 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—

  • 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.

  • 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,

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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;

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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:

  • 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?

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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,

  • 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.

• “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 PoetRobert 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"— Ashort 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