The Shasta courier., 1861-06-15
SHASTA COURIER.
The Village Editors Visions.
BY nosnok G. CARLTON

IT'S night! The busy world is bash in dreams
Still, from yon narrow basement fcebly CLEANS
A midnight lamp-the emblem evrywhcrs
OF pale unhappness andwasting care;
There as each silent moment onward fits,
The Village Editor, Rejecting, sits
Ah, cherries is that sombre, lonely room,
Dark ghostly shadows lurk amid the gloom;
The last pale ember dies upon the hearth
As in the heart oft die the hopes of earth
While on the wall, with cobwebs cover Ger,
And on the dusty, litter'd, unswept hoor,
The lamp so dimly casts its dying light
As scarce to cleave the thick ming gloom of night,
This sad, detected man sits there, alone,
Upon crazy tripod-scarce his own
His hand supports his wan and sunken face.
Where bitter Wee has left her lasting trace;
While on the desk. TO which he bends his eyes,
An editorial half written lies.
But he is thinking not of what he's penn'd,
He's threading Mem ry's ways, his thoughts now
wend
Back through dead years, to those enchanted days
When Joy strewd flowers DER his childhood
ways.
Kind Fancy shows to him the loved, loved cot
Where he was born. He the sacred spot
Walks trembling up and opes the humble door,
And all the dear ones there greet him once more.
His mother, ever loved, too glad to speak,
Throws round his neck her arms, and on his cheek
Leaves many holy tear, and many kiss
The sacred tokens of her sudden bliss
His sisters meet him with sweet words and tears,
His brothers welcome voices greet his ears,
E'en the old dog leaps his heaving breast,
And mingles his caresses with the rest
Thus FER the past thssad man fingers long
His hoyhood's fav rite haunts before him throng:
The sloping meads clothed in their garb of green
The dim old hills, far in the distance seen
The whisp' ring groves, slow nodding in the sun
The crystal stream that near the cottage run
The school house, with its broken window-panes-
The dusty way--the long but grassy lanes
The rd xylo he nj elpd he IN
The fields, where oft he watched the plowman toll
The creaking pump before the cottage door,
Where he had saked his thirst in days Of yore-
All pass before his mind in sweet review,
As he lives o'er the haleyon past anew
But see the unfed sanctum lamp grows dim,
The stealthy shadows creep, in legions grim,
Around its dying rays, until at last
Their siuoth ring forms upon its flame they cast.
Now, silent, dark, impenetrable gloom
Doth reign supreme in that uneheerful room
Still, there the eare-worn editor doth sit;
Still visions Of the past before him fit
But 10 ! he sleeps and Fancy employs
His mind in contemplation of no joys.
Again he thinks, that weary he strays
To that dear spot where passed his early days
But, ah, how changed each haunt each object seem,
From that sweet picture of his waking dream 1!
The cot is there, but crumbling to decay,
Old fragments of the pile aroond him lay
He pushes back the half-shut, topping door,
And wanders in upon the creaking floor:
Most wretched sight Dilapdation there
Hold riot undisturbed With wond'riug stare
He looks around-his stricken heart grows weak,
And greving tears flow down his hollow check
Thus sorrow wrings his SOUL and anguish keen,
As he regards the melancholy scene.
All, who that desolation portray
The windows gone--the chimneys torn away
The broken roof-the ruin d fallen stair
The dark, old ceilings crumbng everywhere
The SHATTERED mantles-sunkcn, litter d floors
The hearths destroy d-the unhinged, PROSTATE
doors
And that damp, mouldy smell that fills the place
Yes, who the dismal picture dare to trace?
Long weeps the dreamer ere he turns away
From that lone spectacle of sad decay.
He looks abroad the landscape, how fororn
The groves are gone--the fields where waved the
corn
Arc but waste-the once delightful meads
Are overgrown with briars, shrubs, and reeds;
The long-ncglected orchard when child
His play ground, dreary seems, untrimmd d and
wild
heap Of stones marks where the school-housc
stood;
The silyry brook is forced its way to thread
O'er fallen leaves and grass that choke its bed
While meath ltaiGhh,F tree itself decayed
He find where Evcd friends forever laid
But morning came, and soft Aurora's beams
Flowd through the easement in pale silver streams,
And when at last DER earth the sunlight broke,
From nightmare dream the editor awoke;
Pale, unrefreshed, he rose and turned away
To those engrossiug cares that claim d the day,
Rejecting as he smiled that time would be
When he should cease to dream but only see,
With deathless eye, the visions fair and bright
Of that love- realm of endless, pure delight.