Bedford inquirer. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1857-1884, 1866-10-12
gpetrn
THE CLOSING SCENE.
BY 7. BUCHANAN READ.

The following is pronounced by the ''Westmin.
ster Review" to be unquestionably the finest
American poem ever written:
Within the sober realms of leafess trees,
The russell year inhaled the dreamy air.
Like some tanned reaper in his hour of ease,
When all the fields lying brown and bare.
The gray barns looking from their hazy hills,
Ger the dun waters winding in the wales,
sert down the air a greeting to the mills,
On the dun thunder of alternate fails.
All sights are mellowed, and all sounds subdued,
The hills seemed further and the streams sang
low,
As in dream the distant woodman hewed
His wintFy log, with many a mufled blow.
The embattled forests, erewhile armed with gold,
Their banners bright with every martial hue
Now stood like some sad, beaten host of old,
Withdrawn afar in Times remotest blue.
On sozibre wings the vulture tried his fight;
The dove scarce heard his signing mates COM
plaint
And, like star slow drowning in the light,
The village ehurch-vane seemed to pale and
flint
The sentinel cock upon the hillside crew
Crew thrice-and all was stiller than before;
Silent, till some replying warder blew
His alien horn and then was hearc no more.
Where erst the jay, within the elm's tall crest,
Made garrulous trouble round her unaedged
young
A. -. A. ,-;,lo b,,-,s, ~
BY every light wind like a censer swung.
Where sung the noisy martins of the caves,
The busy swallows eircling ever near
Foreboding, as the rustic mind believes,
An early harvest and plenteous year.
Where every bird that walked the vernal feast
Shook the sweet slumber from its wings at
morn;
To warn the reaper of the rosy east;
All was now sunless, empty and forlorn.
Alone, from out the stubble. piped the quail
And croaked the crow thro' all the dreary gloom;
Alone, the pheasant, drumming in the valo,
Made echo in 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 noiseless out ofsight.
Amid all this--in this most dreary air,
And where tho woOdbine shed upon the porch
Its crimson leaves, as if the year stood there,
Firins tbs Hii "ieh its inverted torch.
Amid all this, the centre of the scene,
boirod .,o+--,,
tread
Piled the swift wheel, and with her joyless mien,
Sat like a fate, and watched the flying thread.
She had 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 thick mantle trailing in the dust.
While yet her check was bright with summer
bloom,
Her country summoned and she gave her ALL
And twice war bowed to her in sable plume
Re-gave the swerd to rust upon the wall.
Re-gave the sword, 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 dropping wheel went on,
Like the low murmur Of a hive at noon;
Long, but not loud, the memory of the gone
Breathed through her lips sad and tremulOus
tone.
At last the thread was snappsd-hcr head was
bowed,
Life dropped the distaf thro' her hands serene;
And loving neighbors smoothed her careful shroud;
While death and winter closed the autumn
see nc.