“Consumption” by William Cullen Bryant describes the imminent death of a tuberculosis patient and her way to heaven.
The poem starts with the speaker describing the imminent death of the person to whom this poem is spoken. She is going “for the grave,” really shortly and there is nothing she can do about it. He knows that her death is close because of the light in her eyes. It is so bright he knows there’s no way it can continue for long. No one can maintain that level of brightness.
He continues on to tell her, hoping to make her see the hopelessness of her situation, and turn her to God, that there is no medicine either from the fields or minerals that can save her. She will be better off if she commits herself to God’s hands at this point.
The speaker’s tone softens when he turns to describing how she will leave for heaven. It will not be harsh, painful or in any way disturbing. God and “Death” will take her as a bud is broken from a branch by the wind.
In the final lines he asks her to “Gently” close her eyes and remember that God will see him, and all those who care about her, come together in heaven.
This is the poem:
Ay, thou art for the grave; thy glances shine
Too brightly to shine long; another Spring
Shall deck her for men’s eyes—but not for thine—
Sealed in a sleep which knows no wakening.
The fields for thee have no medicinal leaf,
And the vexed ore no mineral of power;
And they who love thee wait in anxious grief
Till the slow plague shall bring the final hour.
Glide softly to thy rest then; Death should come
Gently, to one of gentle mould like thee,
As light winds wandering through groves of bloom
Detach the delicate blossom from the tree.
Close thy sweet eyes, calmly, and without pain;
And we will trust in God to see thee yet again.
The theme of the Poem is the inevitability of being consumed by Death, and the lines that best reflect that theme are:
Glide softly to thy rest then; Death should come
Gently, to one of gentle mould like thee,