The weekly Portage sentinel. [volume] (Ravenna, Ohio) 1854-1861, 1860-01-04
SENTINEL.
The Death of the Year.
~ sROasr .. parHrIor.

@oS SSoeA Va bAV 8O~@'
sT sRoRsE .. PRENTIeE.
Eistf lstl what fearful tone was that which rose
Upon the wind OF mIdnightH Nature sounds
No knell o'sT earth for the departed year;
Yet when its last breath passed into the void
OF the by y-gone eternity, beard
Echoed within the chsmbers Of my soul
A sound, perrhance the shadow of a sound,
Wild, strange and dismal, as Il were q wall,
a low and blended wall, from all the graves
And sepulehres Of ocean and Of earth
Upon the Silly air. Oh, was 1t not
EhU solemn voice Of old Eternity
UtIsrinE one cry, one wild and deep lament,
For bis dead Childi
The year, alas 10 gone
Forever from the world! He seemed TOO strong,
Too mighty e'er TO die. He laid his hsnd
On breathing millions, and they sunk beneath
The green grass Of the grave; he blew aloud
The trumpet blast of battle, and dark hosts
Net in the mortal shock, and when the fame
And smoke of conflict had gone by, they lay
Like Autumn's red leaves on the plain; he passed
o'er Earth, and at each wave of his broad wings,
Volcano, earthquake, whirwind, storm and food
Eprang beneath the silent spell, aud wrought
The fearful errands of theiI destiny;
On Scorched and broken pinions with the dead,
There, there to sleep.
What is Timer
A giant power, stern, vast and bodiless,
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 In the pallid beams
OF mOurnful memory, but the pershed year
10 all unseen. From thence we sadly turn,
And gazing ON the Future, we behold
Dim, countless phantoms, trooping from Its dark
Unfathomed ocean, to the lonely shore
OF earthly being, but the coming years
Are all invisible. And then we pause
And gaze above, around, beneath, and 10!
Our eyes are startled by the mighty deedS
OF the now passing time; the iron weight
0f the st TN presence rests upon our souls;
We feel the awful spectre touch our browS
With his cold, death'like nngerj and we hear
The deep ard mingled roar that rises up
From all his mighty doingS on our earth;
And yet he has form to cast ::s Sleam
Or shadows On our sigGt
The parted year
called forth from earth blooming Paradise
Ofsweet spring hswers-be waived his Autumn want
And they were not. He woke in human souls
A.riAdS of hopes, aud Joys, and burning loves,
That seemed like things Of Immortality
a9 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 my eterious months,
We may not know-thank God we may not know,
We only know that with each passing month
And day, and hour, the low, deep wall Of grief,
The maddened cry of agony, the shout
OF fierce ambition. tho oud thunder shock
OF bloody conflict, and the knell of death
VIII echo, each, in one brief moment, o'er
Tho sea of time, and then be swallowed up
And lost forever in the onward sweep
Offs uDpit! lug waves.
Tho midnight skies
Are weeping silent tears AS If they greved
For the old year, and the Pale'starS look sad
And tremble, as if living, sorrowing hearts
Were throbblng in their breasts. In vain! in vain
The faded year is nothing now. The flowers,
The birds, the waves, the thousand melodies
OF vernal lie and nature will come back,
But he returns more. The winds may search
For him in their journeyings; the grand
Old Ocean with its thunder tones may call
Forever to him in its ceaseless dash
Beneath the heavens; the bright and burning star
With their high tones Of Eden minsrelsy
May speak his name in their eternal sweep
Along their flaming paths; the comets wild
May seek him by the baleful blaze they spread
Through realms of ancient Night; but none of thes
Shall ever find him, for he lieth not
In all the universe of God. Years die,
And centuries die, and there will come day
When the dread angel of the Apocalypse,
Standing on land and sea, will lift his hand
And swear that time snail be no more,
Yet thou,
Oh man, witt never die. The earth will pass
Like wild dream away, the very heavens
Be rolled together a scroll, but He,
Beneath whose feet the sun and stars are dust,
Hath said that thou shalt never die. Those great
And awful words of the omnipoent
Are caught up and ree-chotd to thy soul
By all the world of nature. deep voice,
That tells thee of thy immortality,
Speaks in the breeze and 10 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 csdences of night,
Deep minges with the everlasting roar
OF ocean in its wild unrest, and swellS
Forever In the angel-symphonies