The Vermont transcript. [volume] (St. Albans, Vt.) 1864-1870, 1868-01-03
The bitter blast would smite him in the face
With blows that tingied TIL his eyes were wet,
And sent theirmoisture down his wrinkled cheek
To freeze and mat with ice his wintrv beard.

4
Enthusiastically clad like one who wears
The gift of many clinics. His limbs were clothed
| In garments like the Summers, tender green,
Faded, with IA ling tints of gaudy fo~'rs.
/ The buckles at his knees were psnsy-ise
! In shape and stamen-shapcd of tongue;
Yet they were as the withered yiolcts
Which love keeps for remembrance with regret
Sweet If it be remembrance with regret,
Since love embalms them, stepped in fragrances.
doublet wore he Of the color wrought
By change on leaves when Autumn is but young,
Or like the cheeks of peaches next the sun;
! And for the buttons to his doublet one
Might fancy grapes had grown and shrunken
there,
CIasping his shrunken form, 80 like were they
To purple withered grapes; yet scarce they held
His garment to him; for the venturous wind
Would Lift the lower edges at the front,
And turn them outward, showing thus. to one,
If one had watched, lining golden hued
But pale, Ike gathered sheafs of ripcned wheat
And for cloak he wore cloth as dun
As any moorland in December is,
Yet frInged with ermine soft as falling snow,
With collar, too, Of ern1ine; and the throat
Was elasped with that which seemed cone of
{
pine.
But bare was his bowed head; and all around
Its wintry crown his thin white hair streamed
out,
Like the torn banners which the aged droop
Surrendering to the sieges of years.
poor, old, weary wight, and strangely clad,
Indeed was he; and looking in his face,
There could be read the longing which men feel
When, from one sorrow to another thrown"
They wish that final rest which waits for all.
And upward still he walked, and paused, and
walked,
And struggled with the storm, and drew his
cloak
Shieldwise before him, tightened DER his front;
And while the winds came fitting down the slopes.
To shiver frosty lances 'gainst his breast,
And stars sbone keenly in the midnight sky,
BE reached the lifted summit of a mount,
Aud kneeled upon one knee, and laid the Book
Upon the other: with his back now turned
Against the blast; and opened wide the book,
That towards his left hand all the leaves
Lay heavily, and so towards his right
The heavy half of the thick cover fell
Down by his knee, and then with nervier hand
Albeit his fingers shining were with cold,
He wrote across the bottom Of the page
The last page of the heavy book-he wrote
Grandly: amen. So MOTE IT BE :" and died.
And as he.died there went wAiling sound
Low, like the moaning of wintry wind,
Through all the trembling forests, and the
Wales,
And all the secret corners of the world.
And the fierce storm, touched with rude tender
ness
Swept SHOWS with gentle movement Ger his
form,
And buried so the KING of That WHICH WAS;
Buried the mighty YEAR; but left TO Time.
His only ancestor and heir, the Book
Which none may read and wholly under-
stand.
And no man wept that the Old Year was dead
In that night when he died; but many men
II after days, while straying on the hills
Alone, and seeing where the Year had walked,
Ana thinking Of the records of his boUk,
or things their hearts knew were recorded there,
Wept for the memory of that dead year;
And mourning some forgot the year then king,
And bred new sorrow pining DER the old;
And made waste because they had made
waste;
Nor left the dead to bury all their dead,
As wisdom hath commanded But there we're
Some men who, though they mourned not the
dead year
That night he died, yet, when they saw his
ways
While walking lonely on the lonely hills,
Did sorrow with sorrow that had hope;
And made the present better than the past
Because of that high hope which is for all,
So long as not Time dies, bat only Years.
/ Now, when the Old Year wrote "Amen,7 and
died,
Behold! miracle of life was wrought,
Such as doth keep the world forever young
BY annual renewal; for old Time,
4 The only ancestor and heir of years
Eternity the ancestor and heir of him
When the year died, gave birth to fair boy
In wcndrons wise of which no man may know;
And with the breath which the old year expired
Saying g Amen" the boy became inspired
( So that no breathing of the years did cease.
And as that breath which was the last of life
In one, became the first of life in him
The latest child of Time, the fair young Year
Stood like star of glory on the hills;
And as he lifted up his features new,
And fronted TO the North, and to the South,
And to the West which yet he could not see,
And to the East, and tip-toe saw the sun,
Recorder Of our days,-the years of him
Who is our king and year, there came shout
OF reclamation girding all the world.
From bell towers throbbing bells launched out a
tide
Of joy sonorous on the startled air,
Till the far bills became once more as shores
To meet the crested surges of glad sounds
Tumultuously jubilant. The winds
Once aimless, feetest coursers now Of JOY,
And thunder-ridden, galloped DER the wolds
With proclamation of the newborn king.
And men, touched with a feeling half forgot,
Struck hearty hands, and leaned towards their
! youth.
The young year was their friend. And women
fair
So they be women true they all are fair
Looked out with faces garlanded in joy;
And children, rudy checked as morn or eve,
Were careless in their laughter and their shouts:
And all to all said this: HAPPY New YEAR!
81. Adams, 1868.
MILITARY CHANGEs.-The President
has made several military changes.
Gen. Ord is ordered to turn over the