Answer:
William Cullen Bryant's poem, "Thanatopsis", revealed the Romantic conviction that the universe is really a living organism that undergoes constant cyclical changes instead of being something mechanical. He uses nature to explain what happens to us after we die, and how we should think or feel about death.
"(...)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. "
He explains that people grow, die and then decompose back into earth again. This is the way living things undergo constant cyclical changes.
"(...)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..."
The speaker feels sadness about the death but comes to term with it because understands that it's a cycle.
"(...)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"