The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1866-06-16
From the Louisville Journal
TIE BURIAL OF Gop.
A DREAM THAT WAS DREAMED.

I dreamed that God was dead. An awful dread
o'orwhsImed my soul. a universe bsrsaved
In blasted orphanage. with tokens dark
OF woes inimitablo aghast and STILL
Psled in the vaults Of space. The Fount Of life
Dried up. The eeaseless miracles divine
Creating forms and tints and tones and all
The energies Of palpitating life
Through countless planes and magntudes and spheres
Without their God, were not. All bis works,
BY instinct omnpresent, paused and died,
And yet-Iivsd On, both life and death the same.
The stars IMPOSED and toppled Ger along
Their crystal paths strswn, like stranded shpsi
AID far around creations outer walls
They glared like fun'ra1 torches pale and sad.
And darkness came and stood before the stars
Yet hid them Light came and fed upon
The darkness, yet consumed it not-both light
And darkness one. Hope came with blanehiug check
And died. Love signing, looked its last sad wish,
And died. Hope cams-departing oame-and died
The angels with their hushed and strngeas harPs,
Arehangels, eherubim and ssraphim
And spirits Of the beautiful and just
The prinoely Son and mighty Spirit came
To swell the pageant dire. Time came, with all
Its bloody, fearful Christ bright scroll enwraPped
Around its ssrpent-form, like mufiing hood
The furtivs vissge Of the noiseless thief;
Eternity, with all its seconds, came;
And Space in ali its countless points-e'en Death
Triumphant, came, in ave, to die with God
All things seemed dual and yet ons-a dead
And living universe embraced Around,
Above, below, emptiness not empty
phantom world all palpabls-aworld
To sense alive--to dreaming CONSEQUENCES
An dead contradiction infinite!
dreamed. that then, by strange consent, as if
All skies and world and depths and sentent things.
We're swayed by one onniscient thought aud viii.
The universe. in boundIess gloom and awe
And pomp Of State unutterable, prepared
The funeral Of God. Nought moved spoke.
And yet, in dreams, perplezed BY Hfeless life.
BY stagnant motion and by toneless sounds,
by signals strange and rayless fires along
The beacon-hights Of goddess empire grand,
felt that-IIis shroud unwoVen
Outaowing like a woof Of light His grave
Dug by no mortal hand-Himsel If his tomb
Begrt and watched by clouds, in ourcuits wide,
Piled upward in Titantie masonary,
As topless walls Of gloom His hearse aud bier
In distance screened in mystery sublime
His knel the tolling deep Of bells unwrought,
Heard only in the year Of waiting thought,
And swung on high in every deep'ning domes;
His Girge unrhym'd voicsiess. speetral-toned
And chanted by unmoying lips OF choirs
Innumerable. mingling silent signs
OF vinglsss winds with loud and solemn
OF oceans dead; His pail the dusty skirts
OF woven shadows DIM felt that all
ALL-ALL-was ready mutelY waiting for
THE AWFUL BURIAL OF GoD.
Appalled,, could bear no The dreamer awoke!
Joy. joy. ye sad mortals! The horror is past,
The dreaming has ended-the days breaking fast.
The n the hills and its sheen in the air
Inscribe the sphere that God is still there.
The food in the fields and the buds on the stems.
he worlds round His brows like Offering gems
The bannering clouds and wide-roling tides
Proclaims that His power forever abides.
Without our God what things could be
In earth air heaving sea;
What sounds arise what colors glow
Upon earth's here below.
See the kindness
See the gladness
In our blindness,
In madness.
He forever pours upon us,
Sinking downward to dust!
Oh the JOY, and oh the bliss!
We Dor mortaIs have in this
Our father God
All good things giveth!
Our Father God,
FOREVER LIyErH!
VII PLATT
LOUISVILLE, May, 1866.