The weekly Minnesotian. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1852-1858, 1858-01-02
THE CLOSING YEAR.
BY q. D. PRENTICE.

IT'S mdIght's holy hour, and silence now
Is brooding, like gentle spirit, DER
The still snd pulseless world. Hark on the Winds
The bell sieep tones are swelling; Z Is the kneil
or the deDarted year. No funeral train
Is sweeping past yet, on the stream and wood,
With melancholy light, the moonbeams rest
Like a pile, spotess shroud; the air Is stirred,
As by amourner's sigh; and, on yon cloud,
That flats so still add placidly through heaven,
The spirits OF the Seasons seem to stand
Young Spring bright Summer, Autumn's solemn iorm'
And Winter with his aged lo:ks,-and breathe
In moIrnful cadences, that come abroad
Like tie far wind -harps wild, touching wall,
melancholy dirge DER the dead year,
Gonefrom the earth forever.
IT'S time
For memory and for tears. Within the deep,
Stillchambers Of the heart, specter dim,
Whose tones are like the wizard voice of Time,
Heard from, the tomb Of ages, points its cold
Ant solemn finger to the beautiful
AMI holy visions, that have passed away,
And left no shadow of their lOveliness
Outhe dead waste of life. That specter lifts
TIE cOfin-lid Of Hope, and JOY, and Love,
AID bending mournfa ly above the pale,
Sweet forms that slumber there scaters dead HOVER
Ger what has passed to nothngness.
Has gone, and with It many glorious throng
OF happy dreams. Its mark Is each brow,
Its shadow, in each h art In its swift course,
1t waved its scepter DER the beautiful;
And they are not. 1t laid its pad hand
Upon the strong man ; and the naughty form
1t trod the hall Of revelry where thronged
The bright and joyous; and the fearful wall
OF stricken ones is heard, where erst the song
And reckless shout resounded. 1t passed Ger
The plain where sword, and spear and shield
Flashed in the light Of midday; and the strength
or serried hosts is shivered, and the grass,
Green from the soil Of carnage, waves above
The crushed arr Wondering skeleton. It came,
And faded like wreath Of mist at eve;
Yet, ere it melted in the viewless air, -,.
II heraided its millions to their home,
In the dim land Of dreams.
Fierce, spirit Of the glass and scythe what power
Can sta him in his silent course, or melt
His iron h cart to pity! On, still on,
He presses. I'D forever. The proud bird,
The condor of he Andes, that can soar
Through heavens unfathomable depths, or brave
The fury of the mort. 'ern hurricane .nI
Furs his broad wing at 'ght-fsll, and sinks down
TO rest upon his mountain I Z" , pus line
Knows not the weight of sleep OF ~ sa;, S;,a
And Nights deep darkness has n, '"~'A W ''A1
His rushing pinion.
Revolutions swe ep
Der earth, like troubled visions Ger the br. ~s'
or dreaming sorrow; cities rise and sink
Like bubbles on the water; fiery isles
Spring blazing from the ocean, and 60 back
To their mysterious caverns; mountains rear
To heaven their bold and blackened cliffs and bow
Their tall heads to the plain and empires rise,
Gathering the strength of hoary centuries,
And rush down. like the Alpine avalanche,
Startling the nations; and the very stars,
Yon bright a glorious blazonry Of God,
Glitter awhile in their eternal depths,
And, like the Pleiad, loveliest Of their train,
Shoot from their glorious spheres, and pass away
To darkle in the trackess void yet Time,
I'll e, the tomb builder, holds his fierce career,
Dark, stern, all pitiless, and pauses not
Amid the mighty wrecks that strew his path,
To sit and muse, like other conquerors,
Upon the fearful ruin he hath wrought.