Daily union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1865-1866, 1866-01-21

| lauy lfieDu SENDS us Tue following
beautiful reflections; and, though week OF
two behind the time when they should hav,
reached Us, they viii not fail TO please the
taste Of the iudicious reader:
The sun has not shone this burial day O
the Old Year. The phantom procession, a
funeral train, has tinged with ghostly BAN
ners earth and sky with shadowy gloom
Melancholy broods on every face, and the
merry sound of human voices is hushed in
sympathy with the gloom of the dying year
Ali old friend, thou art carrying TO the
tomb the momentous barque that erst bore
the expiring hopes of a nation A wondrous
dover was thine, Old Year, fre;ghted with
the eycntfnl issues Of dying struggle; and
now as ! sit in the hush Of the last solemn
hours Of thine ebbing life, ] trace the
events, from the beginning 10 the close Of thy
reign, that has marked a history in the
march Of time
see a band Of stern, hopeful men, upon
whose faces is written the determined pur-
pose Of will. There is no wavering coward
ice here, and if it be they battle for sToaq,
then "ne'er did vice take fairer form Of
virtue"
Follow on, as the battle-trail is marked by
crimson gore on, on, with those determined
men, cen through the last desperate, despair
ing efforts of the little crew of the Forlorn
Hope" till wrecked on the lonely shore, the
ruins lie scattered p fragments, and the
meanings Of expiring Faith is hushed in the
shouts Of the victorious conquerors. And
those who gave their lives and hopes as sac
ri6ces, what of them? Ali
fearless smooth O or the blood red sod,
Leave him TO rest in his martyr grave,
lie, and the crime Of his cause with his
God"
In those CHASTITY blood-stained faces, there
is naught that would have shamed the
Spartan mother bending Ger her slain. O,
there is mystery still in all this that will
only be revealed in the time of His
good pleasure. Ali there is much of holy
truth and beauty here, though we cry rebel
liously as the Christening hand smites the
covering victims; with the juggernaut of
their own fratricidal oppression, reared by
human hands.
viii the New Year come tonight? Me-
thinks the weird raven croaks in these lag
ging moments, and the pallid lamplight falls
so ghostly on the sleeping chichester at my
side, that / start and touch her breathing
face to reassure my coward heart that she is
not the phantom train of the dying year.
How the shadows of the pine tree at the
window casts sombre, fitting shades upon
the wall, and ] can almost see the bust of
Pallas, and the raven ever fitting, chanting,
"Nevermore" What grim phantasy has
seized me that i hide my face and wait the
stroke that tells the Old Year has departed.
Are they making his grave with the great of
ages past-burying his laureled-crowned
head in the tomb of Immortal Dates p 0,
weary monarch, take to thy rest the canker-
ing memories of the past, for they are thine,
thy rightful heritage, born with thee, let
them die in thy grave. Take, pray thee,
the remorseful heart-pang that lies all
cold and heavy for duty unperformed, for
kindness unrequitted toward those who can
never need it now take the midnight vigils,
the dreary tears, the memory of the pale,
pleading faces of the furnishing prisoners;
the red-tracked snow and the forms that
found in its chill covering, winding sheet
and a sepulchre. Stihe in thy death-sigh,
the roar of battle mingling with the rushing
of the river, the ripping james the form
of chief with pale, noble, g0dlike face,
surrendering the palladium of ten thousand
prayers Take them all, Old Year, but leave
the memory of our noble dead, not pale and
destroyed with physical agony, but radiant
with the divine glory of self-abnegation, the
triumph of completed sacrifice.
Hank, the year is dead Its knell is
sounded in the quick, deliberate strokes that
numbers the strides Of the last moments.
How the wind sobs aud means, and the rain
tears patter on the window panes, and the
blaze dies away on the hearth, in the chill of
this strange moments
The shddou on he icdH has become a mOriRg
hiRql | am seized with vague fear, cause
less, yet real A pine Knot is lying on the
hearth, and seize il with desperation and
east il into the folds of a Pickering blaze.
The fire seizes il, curls and wreathes around
il; one moment and then the fiery glow
leaps exultingly forth, bathing the brow of
the sleeper in bealthful light, and the dark
shadow fees afrighted from the wall and the
New Year knocks for welcome.
Now "let the dead past bury the dead"
With heart all girded for the conflict, let us
pursue with fresh vigor the path marked out
for our feet TO tread. Such is life
THE winters are drifting like flakes of snow.
And the summers like buds between.
Aud the year In the sheaf-so they come and go
On the rivers breast with its ebb and how,
As il gldes in the shadow and sheen.
KENTUCKY.