Weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1858-1865, 1865-02-08
hurtb-Carulina 5tunhara
THE CLOSING SCENE.
BY T. BUCHANAN READ.

The North British Reoie,o pronounces this poem
The best that has ever been written by an Ameri-
IN author:
Within bis sober realm Of 1eaaess trees
The russell year inhaled the dreamy air;
Like some tanned reaper in his hour Of ease,
When all the fields are lying brown and bare
The gny barns looking from their hszy 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 subdued,
The bills seemed farther and the streams sang low;
As in dream the distant wooim n hswi
His winter log With many mudied blow.
TIL embattled forests, erewhila, 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Withdrawn afar in Times remotest blue.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'rous wings the vulture tried his flight;
The dove scarce heard his signing mates complaint;
And like star, slow drownia< in the light,
The village church-vane sesmed to pale and faint.
The sentinel cock upon his hillside crew
Crew thrice and all was stilIer than before
Silent till some replying warder blew
His alien horn, and then was hesrd no more.
Where erst the j,y, within the elm's tall crest,
Made garruous trouble round her unhedged young
And where the orioe hung her swaying nest,
By every light wind like censor swung:-
Where sang the noisy masens Of the caves,
The busy swallows circng ever near,
Foreboding as the rustic mind believes,
An early harvest, and plenteous year.
Where every bird which charmed the vernai feast,
Shook the sweet sumber from its wings at morn,
To warn the reaper of the rosy east
All now was songless, empty, and forlorn.
Alone, from out the stable piped the quail,
And croaked the crow through all the dreamy 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 shrouds night by night;
The thistle-down, the only ghost Of flowers,
Sailed slowly by-passed uoiseless out OF sight.
Amid all this-in this most cheer less air,
And where the woodbine shed upon the porch
Its crimson leaves, as if the year stood there;
Firing the floor with his inverted torch;
Amid all this, the center Of the seeue
The white. haired matron, with monotonous tread,
Piled the swift wheel, and, with her joyless mein,
She bad known sorrow,-he had walked with her,
Oft supped, and broke with her the ashen crust;
And in the dead leaves still she heard the stir
Of his black mantle trailing in the dust.
While vet her cheek bright with summer bloom,
Her country summoned, and she gave her alli
And twice, War bowed to her his sable plume
Re-gave the sword, to rust upon her wall.
Re gave 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 the invading foe.
Long. but not loud the drouing wheel went on,
Like the low murmurs of hive at Moons
Long, but not loud, the memory of the gone
Brea,hed through her lips, sad and tremuous tune.
At last the thread snapped-her head was how'd;
Life dropped the disaf through his hands SERENE
And loving neghbors smoothed her careful shroud,
While.Death and Winter closed the Autumn scene.