The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1867-01-19
THE CLOSING YEAR.
BY GEO. D. PRENTICE.


'Tis midnights holy hour-and silence now
Is brooding like a gentle spirit, DER
The still and pulseless world. Harkl on the
Winds the bells deep tones are swelling
tis knell,
OF the departed year No fu2eral train
Is sweeping past; yet, on the stream and
wood,
With melancholy light the moonbeams rest
Like pale, spotIess shroud the air is stirred
As by mourners sigh; and on yon cloud,
That floats so still and placidly through
heaven,
The spirits of the season seem to stand
Young Spring, bright Summer, Autumn S
solemn form,
And winter, with his aged looks, and.breathe
In mournfuI cadences, that come abroad -
Like the far wind -harp's wild and touching
wall,
A melancholy dirse DER the dead year,
Gone from the earth forever.
'Tis a time
For memory and for tears. Within the deep,
Still chambers of the heart a spectre dim
Whose tones are like the wizard voice of Time
Heard from the tomb Of ages, points its cold
And solemn finger to the beautiful
And holy visions that have passed away,
And left no shadow of their loveliness
On the dead waste of life. That spectre lifts
And, bending mournfully above the pale,
Sweet forms, that slumber there, scatters
dead flowers,
Der what has passed to nothingness.
The year
Has gone, and with it, many glorious throng
Of happy dreams. Its mark is on each brow;
Its shadow In each heart In its swift course
1t waved its sceptre Ger the beautiful,
And they are not 1t laid its paid hand
Upon the strong man-and the naughty form
Is fallen, and the flashing eye is dim.
1t tr0d the halls of revelry, where thronged
The bright and joyOus-and the fearful wall,
OF stricken ones is heard, where first the song
And reckless shout resounded.
1t passed Ger
The battle plain, where sword and spear
and shield
Flashed in the light of midday-and the
strength
Of serried hosts is shivered and the grass,
Green from the soil of carnage, waves above
The crushed and mOuldering skeleton.
1t came,
And faded like n wreath of mist at eve,
Yet, ere it melted in the viewless air,
1t heralded millions to their home
In the dim land of dreams
RemorseIess Time!
Fierce spirit of the glass and scythe what
power
Can stay him in his silent course, or melt
His iron heart to pity? On, still On
He presses, and forever. The proud bird,
The condor of the Andes, that can soar
Through heavens unfathomable depths or
brave
The fury of the Northern hurricane,
And battle his plumage in the thunder home,
Furls his broad wings at nightfall, and sinks
down
~ ,,ro,, H.
Knows not the weight of sleep or weariness,
And nights deep darkness has no chain to
bind
His rushing pinions.
Revolutions sweep
Ger earth, like troubled visions Ger the
breast
Of dreaming sorrow; cities rise and siuk,
Like bubbles on the water; fiery isles
Spring blazing from the ocean, and go back
To their mysterious caverns mountains rear
To Heaven their bald and blackened cliffs,
and bow
Their tall heads to the plain; new empires
rise
Gathering the strength of hoary centuries,
And rush down like the Alpine avalanche,
Startling the nations-and the very stars,
Yon bright and burning blazonry of Cod
Glitter awhile in their eternal depths,
And like the PIeiad, loveliest Of their train
Shoot from their glorious spheres, and pass
away,
To darkle in the trackiess void yet Time,-
Time, the b-builder-holds his fierce
career,
Dark, stern all-pitiless, and pauses not
Amid the mighty wrecks that strew his path,
To sit and muse, like other cCnquerOrs,
Upon the fearful ruin he has wrought