Thanatopsis

These are the excerpts of Thanatopsis I'd like read at my funeral, someday far into the future. I've always loved this poem. I honestly prefer Emily Dickinson's views on death, but none of her poems have quite the right feel to be read. They're powerful, but a bit too raw and blunt. This has the right tone and the right level of comfort.

Thanatopsis - by William Cullen Bryant

The following are the desired excerpts. Full poem can be found at the link above.

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 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.

I know that funerals are for the living, not the dead. The funeral should by rights be what loved ones left behind want, not what the dead want. But damnit, it'll be my last party, and I want people to attend and see my touch, my personality, my presence in everything. I'll be there in spirit - quite literally.