Lewisburg chronicle. [volume] (Lewisburg, Pa.) 1850-1859, 1854-11-17
THE CLOSING SCENE
BY T. BUCHANAN READ.

Within this sober realm of leafess trees,
Tine 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 barns looking from their hazy hills
Ger 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 SUBJ
dued, How;
The hills seemed further, ,andthe stream sang
As in dream, the distant woodman hewed
His winter log, with many muffled blow.
Tn emba,,led 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withdrawn afar in Times remotest blue.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'rouswings,he gs the vulture triedhis flight,
The dove scarce heard his signing mates
complaint,
And like a star. slow drowning in the light,
The village church-yane seemed 10 pale and
faint.
The sentinel cock upon the hillside crew,
Crew thrice, and all was stiller than before,
Silent, till some replying wanderer blew
His alien horn, and then was heard no more.
Where erst the Jay within the elm's tall crest
Made sarrulous trouble round the unfedged
young,
And where the oriole hung her swinging nest
BY every light wind like a censer swung;
Where sang the noisy masons of the caves,
The busy swallows, circling ever near,
Foreboding, as the rustic mind believes,
An early harvest and plenteous year;
Where every bird which charmed the vernal
feast, morn,
Shook the sweet slumber from its wings at
To warn the reapers Of the rosy east:
All, now, was songless, empty and forlorn.
Alone from on, the stubble piped the quail,
And croaked 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 shrcuds nigh,
by night,
The ,hste-down, the only ghost of flowers,
Sailed slowly by, passed noiseless out of
sight.
Amid all this, in this most cheerless air.
And where the woodbine sheds upon the
porch
its crimson leaves as il the year stood there,
Firing the floor with his inverted torch:
Amid all this, the center Of the scene,
yhe white-haired matron, with monot nous
tread,
Piled the swift wheel and with her joyless mien
Sat like Fate and watched the flying thread.
She had known Sorrow he had walked with
her, tcruSt,
Oft supped, and broke with her the ashen
And in the dead leaves still she heard the STIR
OF his black mantle trailing in the dust.
While We, her cheek was bright with summer
bloom,
Her country summoned, ,and she gave her all,
And twice, war bowed 10 her his sable plume,
Re-gave the swords, TO rest upon the wall;
Re.save 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 tn invading foe.
Long. but net loud. the dronins wheel went on,
Like the low murmurs Of hive at noon;
Long but not loud, the mem'ry Of the gone
Breaihed through her lips sad and trem'
louS tone.
At last the thread was snapped, her head was
bowed, serene,
Life dropped the distaff through his hands
And loving neighbors smoothed her careful
shroud scene.
While Death and Winter closed the Autumn