Staunton spectator, and general advertiser. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 183?-1849, 1847-12-29
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POETRY.
TIE CLOSING YEAR.
By GEORGE D. PRENTICE.

| IT'S midnghts holy hour--and silence now
Is brooding, like gentle spirit, DER
The still and pulseless world. Hank the winds
The BELLS deep tones swelling; tits the kneu
| Gsf the departed year. No funeral train
Is sweeping past yet, on the stream and wood,
with melancholy light, the moonbeams rest
Like pale, spotlcss shroud !; the air is stirr'd,
AS by mourner's sigh 4; and yon cloud,
That floats still and placidly through heaven,
The spirits Of the seasons to stand,
Young Spring bright Summer, Autumn's solemn form
And Winter with his aged locks, and breathe
In mournfu cadcnces, that come abroad
Like the far wind harp's wild and touching wall,
A mela ncholy dirge DER the dead year,
Gone from the earth forever IT'S a time
For memory and for tears. Within the deep,
Still chambers Of the heart a spectre dim,
Whose tones are like the wizard voice of Time
Heard from the tomb of ages, points its cold
And solemn finger TO the beautiful
And holy visions that have passd away,
And left no shadow of their loneliness
On the dead waste of life That spectre lifts
The cofiin-lid of hope, and joy, and love,
And, bending mourn fully above the pale
Sweet forms that sumbcr there scatters dead flowers
Ger what has pass'd to notbingncss. The year
Has gone, and, with it, many glorious throng
" happy dreams. Its mark is each brow,
Its shadow in each heart. In its swift course,
1t waved its sceptrc DER the beautiful,
And they are not 1t laid its pallid hand
Upon the strong man, and the naughty form
Is fallen, and the flashing eye is dim
1t trod the hall OF revelry, where throng'd
The bright and joyous, and the fearful wall
of stricken ones is heard, where erst the song
And reckless shout resounded. 1t passd DER
The battle plain, where sword and spear and shield
Flash'd in the light OF mid day--and the strength
l....
Green from the soil Of carnage, waves above
The crush'd and smouldering skeleton. 1t came
And faded like wreath Of mist at eve;
Yet, ere it melted in the viewless air.
1t heraldcd its millions to their homes
In the dim land Of dreams Remorselcss Time
Fierce spirit of the glass and scythe-what power
Can stay him in his silent course, or melt
His iron heart to pity? On still on
He presses, and forever. The proud bird,
The Condor ofthc Andes, that can soar
Through heavens unfathomable depths, or bravo
The fury Of the northern hurricane,
And battle his pumago in the thunder's home
Furls his broad wings at nightalI, and sinks down
To rest upon his mountain but Time
Knows not the weight Of sleep or weariness
And nights deep darkness has chain to bind
His rushing pinion. Revolutions sweep
O'er earth, like troubled visions DER the breast
oi dreaming sorrow cities rise and sink,
Like bubbles on the water fiery isles
Spring, blazing, from the Ocean, and go back
10 their mysterious caverns; mountains rear
10 heaven their bald and blackcn'd cliffs, and bow
Their tall heads to the plain; empires rise,
Gathering the strength of hoary centuries,
And rush down like the A; pine avalanche,
Startling the nations and the very stars,
Yon bright and burning blazonry of God,
Glitter a while in their eternal depths
And, like the Pleiad, lovel;est of their train,
Shoot from their glorious spheres, and pass away,
To dark lie in the tracklcss void Yet Time
Time, the tomb builder, holds his fierce career
Dark, stern, all-pitilcss, and pauscs not
Amid the mighty wrecks that strew his path,
To sit and muse, like other conquerors,
Upon the fearful ruin he has wrought