Georgetown weekly news., 1854-12-28
The Closing Scene.
l 8 5.

n
1.-THE North British Review pronounces this po-
EN- the best that has ever been written by an
American author.
With this sober realm of leafless trees,
The russet year inhaled the dreamy air,
Like some tanned reaper in his hour of ease,
When all the fields are lying brown and bare.
The gray bars, looking from their hazy hills
Oer the dim waters widening in the wales,
Sent down the air greeting to the mills,
On the dull thunder of alternate fails
All sights were mellowed and all sounds subdued
The hills seemed farther, and the streams sang
low;
As in a dream, the distant woodman hew'd
His winter log, with many muftied blow.
Th' embattled forests, erewhile armed in gold.
Their banners bright with every martial hue
Now stood, like some sad beaten host of old,
Withdrawn afar in Times remotest blue.
On slumb'rous wings the vulture tried his flight;
The dove scarce heard his signing mates COM
plant;
And like star, slow drowning in the light,
The village church Yane seemed to pale and
faint
The sentinel cock upon the hill side crew;
Crew thrice, and all was stiller than before
Silent till some replying warderer blew
His alien horn, and then was heard no more.
Where erst the jay within the elm's tall crest
Made garrulous trouble around the unfedged
young;
And where the oriole hung her swaying nest
BY every light wind like q censer swung;
Where sang the noisy masons Of the caves,
The busy swallows circling ever near,
Eo, aI.rIs f1,o fs0 ind hals
An early harvest and plenteOus year;
Where every bird which charmed the yernal feast
Shook the sweet slumber from its wings at morn
To warn the reapers of the rosy east,
All now was songless, empty and forlorn.
Alone, from out the stubble piped the quail,
And croak'd the crow, through all the dreary
gloom;
Alone the pheasant, drumming in the vale.
Made echo to the distant cottage loom.
There was no bud, no bloom upon the bowers;
The spiders wove their thin shrouds night by
night;
The thistle-down the only ghost of flowers,
Sailed slowly by-passed noiseless out of sight.
Amid all this-in the most cheerless air,
And where the woodhne sheds upon the porch
Its crimson leaves, as if the year stood there,
Firing the floor with his inverted torch
Amid all this, the center of the scene,
The white-haired matrOn with monOtonous tread
Piled the swift wheel, and, with her jeyless mien
Sat like a Fate, and watched the flying thread.
She had known sorrow. He had walked with her
Oft supped, and broke with her the ashen crust
And, in the dead leaves, still she heard the stir
OF his black mantle trailing in the dust.
While yet her cheek was bright with summer
gloom, .t.t4t
Her country summoned, and she gave her all
And twice war bowed to her his sable plume;
He gave the swords, to rest npon the wall.
Re-gave the swords-but not the hand that drew
And struck for liberty the dying blow;
Nor him, who to his sire and country true,
Fell mid the ranks of the invading foe.
Long, but not loud, the droning wheel went on,
Like the low murmurs of hive at noon;
Long, but not loud, the memory of the gone
Breathed through her lips sad and tremulous
tune.
At last the thread was snapped, her head was
how'd;
Life dropped the distatf through his hands
serene;
And loving neighbors smoothed her careful
shroud,
While Death and Winter closed the autumnal
scene.