The Port Gibson herald, and correspondent. (Port Gibson, Claiborne Co., Miss.) 1848-18??, 1851-01-03
? O Z Z B Y
THE CLOSING YEAR
BY eEoReE D. PRENTIcE.


lis midnights holy hour-and silence now
Is brooding, like a gentle spirit, DER
The stilland pulseless world Harklonthe winds
Inc belIs deep tones are swelling; It's the knell
Of the departed year. No funeral train
Is sweeping past, yet, on the stream and wood.
With melancholy light, the moonbeams rest.
Like pale, spotiess shroud; the air is stirr'd,
AS by mourners sigh; ard on yon cloud,
That floats so still and pacidly through heaven,
Ihe spirits OF the seasons seem to stand, form,
Young Sping, bightSummer, Antumn's solemn
And Winter with his aged locks, and breathe
In mournful cadences, that come abroad
Like the far wind-harp's wild and touching wall.
A melancholy dirge Ger the dead year,
Gone from the earth forever. IT'S 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 lis cold
And solemn finger to the beautiful
And holy visions that have pass'd away,
And left no shadow of their loveliness
On the dead waste of life That spectre lifts
The coffin-lid of hope, and joy, and love,
And, ,bendingmournfullya yabove thepale flowers
Sweet forms that slumber there, scattered dead
Ger what has pass'd to nothingness. The year
Has gone, and, with it, many glorious throng
of happy dreams. It's mark is on each brow,
Its shadow in each heart. In its swift course,
1t waved its sceptre DER the beautiful,
And they are not 1t laid its palIid hand
Upon the strong man, and the naughty form
Is fallen, and the flashing eye is dim.
1t trod the hall Of reyelry, where throngd
The bright and joyous, and the fearful wall
Of stricken ones is heard, where erst the song
And reckless shout resounded It pass'd Ger
The battle-plain, where sword & spear & shield
Flash'd in the light of midday and the strength
Of serried hosts is siiyer'd, and the grass,
Green from the soil of carnage, waves above
The crush'd and mouldering skeleton. 1t came
And faded like wreath of mist at eve;
Yet, ere it melted in the viewless air,
1t heralded its millions to their home
In the dimland ofdreams Remorseless 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 of the Andes, that can soar
Through heavens unfathomable depths or brave
The fury of the northern hurricane,
And bathe his plumage in the thunder's home,
Fursh his broad wings satnightfall, and sinks down
1O I6Sb upOH d8s-Dub
Knows not the weight of sleep or weariness,
And nights deep darkness has no chain to bind
His rushing pinion. Revolutions sweep
Ger earth, like troubled visions DER the breast
of dreaming sorrow: cities rise and sink,
Like bubbles on the water; fiery isles
Spring, blazing, from the ocean, and go back
To their mysterious caverns, mountains rear
To heaven their bald and blacken'dcliffs, and bow
Their tall head to the plain; new empires rise,
Gathering the strength of hoary centuries,
And rush down like the Alpine avalanche,
Startling the nations; and the very stars,
Yon bright and burning blazonry of GoD,
Glitter while in their eternal depths,
And, like the Pleiad, loveliest of their train,
Shoot from their glorious spheres, & pass away,
To darkle in the trackless void:-yet Time
Time, the tomb-builder, holds his fierce career,
Dark, stern, all-pitiless, and pauses not
Amid the mighty wrecks that strew his path,
To stand muse, like other conquerors,
Upon the fearful ruin he has wrought.