Loudon free press. (Loudon, Tenn.) 1852-1855, 1853-01-15
From the Southern Ladies Book for Norem5er.1
THE DEATH OF THE YEAR.
by GEO. D. PRENTICE.


by GEO. D. PRENTICE.
List! list, what fearful tone was that which rose
Upon the wind Of midnight? Nature sounds
No knell Ger earth for the departed year,
ct when its last breath passed into the void
of the by-gone eternity, heard
Echoed within the chambers of my soul
sound, perchance the shadow of n sound,
Wild, strange and dismal, as it were wall,
low and blended wall, from all the graves
And sepulcres of ocean and Of earth
Upon the Silly air. Oh was it not
The solemn voice of old Eternity
Uttering one cry, one wild and deep lament,
For his dead child
The year, alas! is gone
Forever from the world. He seemed too strong,
Too mighty e'er to die. He laid his hand
On breathing millions, and they sank beneath
The green grass of the grave; he blew aloud
The trumpet-blast of battle, and dark hosts
Met in the mortal shock and when the fame
And smoke of conflict mad gone by, they lay
Like Autum's red leaves the plain he passed
Ger earth, and at each wave of his broad wings,
Volcano, earthquake, whirlwind, storm, and food
Sprang up beneath the silent SPELL and wrought
The fearful errands Of their destiny;
Yet now, his own great mi ssion done, he lies
On scorched and broken pinions with the dead,
There, there to sleep.
What is time?
A giant-power stern, vast, and bodiIess,
That we may feel but never see. We gaze
With aching eyes into the past and there
We see a thousand shapes of light and gloom
Floating like atoms on the pallid beams
vi mourniul memory, but the persisted year
Is all unseen. From thence we sadly turn,
And, gazing the future, we behold
Dim, countless phantoms trOoping from its dark
Unfath omed ocean to the lonely shore
Of earthly being, but the coming years
Arc nj nd hon
And gaze above, around, beneath, and 10!
Our eyes are startled by the mighty deeds
vi the now passing time; the iron weight
vi his stern presence rests upon our souls;
We feel the awful spectre touch our brows
With his cold deathliie finger; and we hear
The deep and mingled roar that rises up
From all his mighty doings on our earth;
And yet he has no form to cast its CLEAN
Or whadow on our sight
The parted year
Called forth from earth blooming Paradise
Of sweet spring howers-he waved his autumn wand
And they were not. He woke in human souls
Myriads of hopes and joys and burning loves,
That seemed like things of Immortality
He touched them and they died. Another year,
The gift of God, is cast beneath the skies,
And what is darkly hidden in the still
And silent depths of its mysterious months,
We may not kaew-thank God, we may not know.
And day and hour, the low, deep wall of grief,
The maddened cry Of agony, the shout
Vi fierce ambition, the loud thunder shock
OF bloody conflict, and the knell of death
Will echo, each, its one brief moment Ger
The sea of time, and then be swallowed up
And lost forever in the onward sweep
OF its Implying waves.
The midnight skies
Are weeping silent tears as if they grieved
fhar n al. l.
And tremble, as if living, sorrowing hearts
Were throbbing in their breasts. In vain! in vain
The faded year is nothing now. The flowers,
The birds, the waves, the thousand melodies
or yernal life and nature will come back,
But he returns more. The winds may search
For him in their far journeyings; the grand
Old ocean its thunder-tones may call
Forever to him in its ceaseless dash
Beneath the heavens; the bright and burning stars
With their high tones Of Edens minstrelsy
May speak his name in their eternal sweep
Along their flaming paths; the comets wild
May seek him by the balefu blaze they spread
Through realms of ancient night; but none of these
Shall ever find him, for he lveth not
In all the universe of God. Years die,
And centuries die and there will come a day
When the dread angel of the Apocalypse,
Standing on land and sea- will lift his hand
And swear that time shall be no more
Yet thou,
Oh man, wilt never die. The earth will pass
Like wild dream away, the very heavens
BE rolled together as q scroll, but He,
Beneath whose feet the sun and stars are dust,
Hath said that thou shalt never die. Those great
Aud awful words of the 0mnipotent
Are caught up and re-echoed to thy soul
BY all the world of nature A deep voice,
That tells thee of thy Immortality,
Speakes in the breeze and in the hurricane;
Blends with the gentle music of the stream,
The loud rush of the cataract, the peal
From the dark bosom of the cloud, and all
The thousand mystic cadences of night,
, Deep mingles with the everlasting roar
OF ocean in his will unrest, and swells
Forever in the angel-symphonies
Sung by the stars around the midnight throne.
LOUISVILLE, KY, 1852.