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The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls

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Many people wonder about death.What happens after death? If people will remember them after? In the poems “The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls” and “Thanatopsis” both author explain their views on how nature affects humanity. In “The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls” by Longfellow and “Thanatopsis” by Bryant, both authors develop themes about nature but they rely on different poetic devices to advance the these themes.
In the poem “The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls” Longfellow uses the poetic devices: repetition, personification, and rhyme scheme to illustrate that nature continues its cyclical pattern, even though humans die. Throughout the whole poem, Longfellow repeats at the end of each stanza “And the tide rises, the tide falls”. The poem describes
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In William Cullen Bryant’s “Thanatopsis,” Bryant speaks of death, saying that it is just a part of nature, as if he is trying to tell us that we should not be afraid of dying. When analyzing Bryant’s “Thanatopsis”; I find that there are many different ways that Bryant’s poem can be interpreted, and I can see that the shift, attitude, connotation, and meter are all big factors in his poem. Bryant’s “Thanatopsis,” is very much about death, and how it is closely related with nature. In the beginning Bryant acts as if death is something scary and sad, “…last bitter hour come like a blight…” (line 9) and “… the all beholding sun shall see no more…” (line 18), then towards the end he changes, acting as if he has come to peace with it, and accepted that everyone will die, “Yet not to thine eternal resting-place shalt thou retire alone…” (lines 31-32) and “… like one who wraps the drapery of his couch about him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.”

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