The Massachusetts spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1821-1823, 1821-12-19
POETRY.
From the New-York Commercial Advertiser. !
To THE DYING WEAR

lEiOO OeSOlatSe anu DYING year.
Emblem of tFansisery man!
Whose wearisome and wild career
Like thine, is bounded to n span:
1t seems but as a little day
Since nature smil'd upon thy birth,
And Spring came forth in fair array
To dance upon the joyous earth.
Sad alteration now how lone :
How verdureless is natures breast,
Where ruin makes his empire KNOWN
In Antumn's yellow vesture drest;
The sprightly bird whose carol sweet
Broke on the breath of early day
The Summer flowers she loy'd to greet
The bird-the fowers--oh, where are they?
Thou desolate and dying year .
Yet lovely in thy lifelessness,
As beauty stretcii'd upon the bier
In deaths clay-cold and dark caress ;
There's lovelmess inthy decay,
Which breathes, whichlmsers round thee staf,
Like memory's mild and cheering ray,
Beaming upon the night ofill.
Yet-yet the radiance is not gone
Which shed a richness DER the scene,
Which smil'd upon the golden dawn
When skies were brilliant and serene
Oh! still a melancholy smile
Cleans upon natures aspect fair,
To charm the eye a little while,
Ere ruin spreads, his mantle there :,
Thou desolatc and dying year!
Since Time entwin'd thy vernal wreati,.
How often love hath shed the tear,
And knelt beside the bed Of death:
How many hearts that lightly sprung,
When JOY was blooming but to die
Their finest chords by death unstrnng,
Havn vioIIad 1ifo9s axnirinor Sio],
And, pillow'd low beneath the clay,
Have ceas'd to melt, to breathe, burn,
The proud, the gentle, and the gay,
Gathered unto the Wondering urrl---
Whilst freshly how'd the frequent tear
For love bereft-afection fled
For all that were our blessings here,
The iov'd--the lost-the sainted deadh
Thou desolate and dying year!
The musing spirit finds in thee
Lessons impressive and severe,
Ofdeep and stern morality:
Thou teachcst how the germ of YOUTH.
Which blooms in beings dawning day
Planted by nature, rear'd by truth
Withers, like thee, in dark decay.
Promise of youth fair as the form
OF Heavens benign and golden bow,
Thy smiling arch begirds the storm,
And sheds a light on every wo;
Hope wakes for thee, and to her tongue
A tone of melody is given,
As if her magick voice were strung.
With the empyreal fire of heaven.
And love which never can expire.
Whose origin is from on high,
Throws DER thy morn array of fire
From the pure fountains of the sky
That ray which glows and brightens still
Unch ang'd-eteral, and diyine--I
Where seraphs own its holy thrill
And bow before its cleaning shrine.
Thou desolate and dying year +!
Prophetick Of our final fall,
Thy buds are gone-thy leaves are scar
Thy beauties shrouded in the pail :;
And all the ganiture that she'd
A brilliancy upon thy prime,
Hath, like morning vision fled,
Unto th' expanded grave of Time.-
Time time ! in thy triumphal flight
How all LIES phantoms fleet away
The smile OF hope-and young delight
Fame's meteor beam-and fancy's ray
They iade-and on thy heaving tide,
Rolling its stormy waves afar,
Are borne the wrecks of human pride,
The broken wrecks of fortunes war.
There in disorder, dark and wild,
Are seen the fabricks once so high,
Which mortal vanity had piled
As emblens of eternity!
And dcem'd the stately piles, whose forms
Frown'd in their majesty sublime,
Would stand mistaken by the storms
That gather'd round the brow of time.
Thou desolatc and dying year!
Earth's brightest pleasures fade like thine,
Like evening shadows disappear,
And leave the spirit to repine-
The stream of life that us'd,to pour
Its fresh and sparkling waters on.
While fate stood watching on the shore.
And Numbered all the moments gone.
Where hath the morning splendour flown.
Which danc'd upon that crystal stream:
Where are the joys to childhood known
When life is an enchanted dreana
lnvelop'd in the starless night
Which destiny has overspread-
Enrolrd upon that trackless fight
Where the dark wing of time hath sped.
Oh, thus has life its eventide
OF sorrow, loneliness and grief
And. thus Invested Of its PRIDE.
il withers like the yellow leaf -
Oh, such is LIES autumnal bower,
when plunder'd OF IFS summer bloom
And such is LIES autumnal hour
Which hcralds man unto the tomb.
FLORIO.
MISCELLANY.
M