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  • Falls of the Kaaterskill
  •  
  • The Clove, Catskills
  •  
  • The Course of Empire: The Savage State
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  • The Course of Empire: The Arcadian or Pastoral State
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  • The Course of Empire: The Consummation of Empire
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  • The Course of Empire: Destruction
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  • The Course of Empire: Desolation
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  • View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, After A Thunderstorm (The Oxbow)
  •  
  • View on the Catskill, Early Autumn
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  • The Voyage of Life: Childhood (First Set)
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  • The Voyage of Life: Youth (First Set)
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  • The Voyage of Life: Manhood (First Set)
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  • The Voyage of Life: Old Age (First Set)
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  • The Architect's Dream
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  • Mount Etna From Taormina, Sicily
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  • A View of the Two Lakes and Mountain House, Catskill Mountains, Morning
  •  
  • Kindred Spirits

The Voyage of Life: Youth (First Set)

Thomas Cole. Oil on canvas, 1840, 52 ½ x 78 ½ in. Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, Utica, NY, 55.106.

About the Series:

The Voyage of Life

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Words

There are many windings in the stream of life, and on this idea I have proceeded. Its course towards the Ocean of Eternity we all know to be certain, but not direct. Each picture I have wished to make a sort of antithesis to the other, thereby the more fully to illustrate the changeable tenor of our mortal existence. I am convinced the opinion of spectators will be various on the subject of the direction of the stream. This I have gathered from remarks already made. That which you have thought might be a defect, has been considered a beauty. 1 
I am still a Youth in imagination & build castles still. They will crumble away most likely but if I can find by groping amid the ruins some bits of gold I may perhaps consider myself fortunate. 2 
Thine early Hopes are fading one by one
The brightest loftiest are the first to die
Grow faint; or cold; perish mournfully.
So in the splendor of the joyous sun
The burnished clouds do gladden all the sky
And laughing put their evening-glory on.
Till sunk the orb amid the murmuring surge:
The highest in the concave first is dead
And so successive withering to the verge
Of ocean drear—night's fall is o'er them spread
And winds and waves chaunt forth a funeral dirge.
Yet thus benighted; Youthful visions fled
One changeless hope remains to cheer my breast:
A day will dawn in the Eternal East.
Catskill [28 March 1838] 3 
thomas cole

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