The Plymouth weekly Democrat. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1860-1869, 1862-01-02
CARISIER'S ESS
TO THE PATRONS OF
THE PLYMOUTH DEMOCRAT.

Nltn lianuS tnat latter, ana with trembling neart,
With limbs that all reluctant do their part,
Once more before the Sacred Grove stand:
And with imploring eyes and lifted hand,
Invoke tie Heavenborn Muse. o Power ofSong.
0 Goodies, of the Nine to whom belong
The enved gifts that Gods and men admire,
To fill tie soul with Song and add Celestial fire
Breathe my forehead with thy quick ming breath
The verse Inspired need. fear no eaily death.
Touch with thy magic wand my pen of steel
Words shall be formed that ry heart must feel.
Take from thine altar, where unceasing blaze
The living flames, whose sou-inspiring rays
Undue the Poets brain with thoughts divine,
burning coal, and touch these lips of mine.
Inspired by thee, my pen with JOY take,
And fearless write the thoughts thou dost create
VIII lie, dressed in flowing rhyme and numbers
round,
The ear is pleased with twice recurring sound
List while sing. Tho humble be my mien,
Tho only as CARR or Boy I'm seen,
mighty task, wondrous theme is mine:
tell the changes of one year of Time.
Great "Sixty- OEc''is dead. His giant length
Lies stretched behind us without life or strength,
And youthful Sixty-Two. with eager hands,
Has TUNED the hour glass. and the dropping sands
Are slowly shroudng in the misty past
year to be remembered to the last.
Since that great year which now is numbered zone,
When God to Earth sent down his only Son,
Who taught mankind by most persuasive speech,
A safe, sure road eternal JOYS to reach,
Time never has produced year. wherein
Events so great, so thickly strewn have been.
Portentous Nature, loLg before its birth,
| Presaged with omens dire to sons of earth,
That, full of woes to human kind should come
The year of Eighteen Hundred Sixty One
For, while the leaves were dropping from the trees
And branches bare sighed in tn autumnal breeze
| High in the West, while evenings stars grew
bright,
| A Comet shone with trail of crooked light
That paled the stars and made the moon grow dim.
Like flaming sword Of the angry cherubim
Who stood upon the walls Of Paradise,
And shut its heavenly glories from the eyes
| Of first Parents, who in sin and zoe
Watched its bright geamings from the vale below,
That blazing prodigy i'll the sky arose,
A direful messenger of coming woes.
Some men looked up and wondered; others gael
With quakirg hearts, sore frigl tened and amazed.
None seemed to know or guess its Grand dire,
/ As through the west it swept with trail of fire.
It's mission done, fur in the So uthern sky
The blazing herald vanished from the eye.
But on the unborn year its whitening blight
| Fell, like the rust in muiky summer night
On field Of caring wheat the day before,
The shining stalks gave hopcs of ample store
OF winter food the thrifty farmer views
The bending head, and cen begins to choose
TIE rpest spot, where first his lab'ring train
Shall in bright swaths lay down the golden grain
With cooling winds the darksomc night desceads
Distilng poisonous dcws heads and ems.
The verom ranklcs in the milky sap,
And round the Stalks a rusty covering wraps.
And when the farmer leads his noisy crew,
With sharpenej scythes his harvest work to do,
Red clouds of dust Il, every stroke arise,
That choke the breath and blind the rca?ers eyes
And shrunken grain and cracking straw is all
The farmer gets for that long summers toll.
| So has the brilliant promise of the year
Been turned to miser and mad despair.
Instead of grain the fruitful lands now yield
A crop OF soldiers armng for the field.
| The wiling horse, obedient to command,
No longer marks the furrow in the land,
But yoked in teams, and dashed with furious blows
He drass the pond'rous cannon through the SHOWS
| The busy railroads. those great thoroughfarcs
Solately crowded with the traders wares,
Can scarcely fill tn Imperative demands
That government is asking at their hands.
| And every ware house, every depot. car,
Now Sroans beneath the implements of war.
Our snowy ships that decked the watery main,
by commerce sent in hopes Of lawful gain,
No longer Ger the deep in safety pass;
But with sharp look out at the lofty mast,
They creep along the guarded coast, for fear
OF capture by the Southern privateer.
And over all Columbia teeming soil,
Where late were heard the sounds peaceful toll,
The hum of busy wheels, the rush of steam,
The clanking of the mill upon the stream,
What startling sounds of strife and war are heard
The steady tramp Of armed men, the word
| OF sharp command the clank of iron heels;
The stirring roll Of drums the ring OF steel;
The boom of canu on the appalling yell
| OF hurting shot, /; the whiz of bomb and she'll;
The angry roll of deadly mus kerry.
That bursts from steady ranks of infantry
The loud hurrah the shouts of strife and hate
From opposing armies met in dire debate;
The shrieks of agony the smohert groan,
That tells how true the fatal ball sped home;
The craunchng. sickening sound of human bones
Crushed meath the cannon's wheels. Half stitled
| means
OF brave men sorcy wounded nnto death,
Who sadly murmur with expiring breath,
A diving blessing for their much-loved friends,
Fer to tie shades the parting soul dcscends /;
And last though the least, the mourn full click
OF the grave diggcr's tools with spade and pick
The soldiers resting place is followed deep,
Where, bodies piled on bodies, in Il heap
Those brave and true hearts find nameless grave,
In that broad land they fought 50 well to save.
But not to vcngeful hand of bloody Mars,
Nor to the influence of baneful stars,
Nor to internal powers, nor spirits fell,
Who visit Earth from depths of deepest Hell.
Can men ascribe the direful cause that fills