The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1874-12-31
TIE CLOSE OF THE YEAR.
nv GEORGE D. PRENTICE.

nv GEORGE D PRENTICE.
Coma Cone forever Like rushing wave
Another wear has burst upon the shore
Of eortbly being-and it's last low tones
Wandering in broken accents on the air,
Ara diving TO an echo.
The gay spring
With its young charms has gone, gone with it's
leaves,
SIumberinp like seraphs i'll the air its birds
Telling their love in music. and its streams
Leaping and shouting, from the up-piled rocks
TO make the earth echo with the Joy of waves
And summer with its dews and showers has gone.
It's rainbows glowing on the distant cloud
Like spirits of the stOrm-its peaceful lakes
Smiling in their sweet sleep, as if their dreams
Were of the opening flowers and budding trees
And overhanging sky-and its bright mists
Resting upon the mountain tops as crowns
Upon the heads of giants Autumn, too,
Has gone! With all it's deeper glories gone.
With its green hills, like affairs of the world
Lifting their rich fruit offerings to their God.
It's cool winds straying mid the forest aisles
To wake the thousand wind harps; its serene
And holy sunsets hanging DER the West,
Like banners from the battlement of heaven;
And its still evenings-When the moon-lit sea
Was ever throbbing like the living heart
OF the great Universe. All, these are now
But sounds and visions of the past--their deep
Wild beauty has departed from the earth
And they are gathered to the embrace of death.
Their solemn herald to eternity.
Nor have they gone alone. High human hearts
of passion have gone with them. The fresh dust
Is chill on many breast that burned erewhile
With fires that seemed immortal. joys that leaped
Like angels from the heart and wandered free
In this young morn, to look upon the flowers,
The poetry of nature and to list
The woven sounds of breeze and bird and stream
Upon the night air, have been stricken down
In silence to the dust. Exultant Hope,
That roved forever on the buoyant winds
Like the bright starry birds of Paradise,
And chanted to the ever listing heart
In the wild music of a thousand tongues,
Or scared into the open sky until
Nights burning gems seemed jeweled on her brow,
Has shut her dropping wings and made her house
Within the voiceless sepucher. And Love,
That knelt at PASSIONS hottest shrine and gaZed
On his hearts idol as some sweet star
Whose purity and distance made it dear,
And dreamed of ecstacies until his soul
Seemed but Tyre that weakened in the glance
OF the beloved one, he, too, has gone
To his eternal resting-place. And where
Is stern Ambition? He who madly grasped
At Glory's feeting phantom; he who sought
His fame upon the battlefield, and longed
To make his throne pyramid of bones
Amid a sea of blood He, too, has gonei
His stormy voice is mute his mighty arm
Is nerveless on its clod, his very name
Is but q meteor of the night of years
Whose CLEAN flashed out moment DER the earth
And faded into nothingness. The dream
OF high devotion, Beauty's bright array
And LIES deep idol memories, all have passed
Like the cloud shadows on star-lit stream
Or a stream of soft music, when the winds
Are slumbeIing on the billow.
Yet why muse
Upon the past with sorrow? Though the year
Has gone to blend with the mysterious tide
OF old Eternity, and borne along
Upon its heaving breast thousand wrecks
OF glory and of beauty. Yet, why mourn
That such is destiny Another year
Succeedeth to the past. In their bright round
The seasons come and go; the same blue arch
That hath hung DER us will hang DER us yet
The same pure stars that we have loved to watch
Will blossom still at twilight's gentle hour
Like lilies on the tomb of day-and still
Man will remain to dream as he hath dreamed
And mark the earth with passion. Love will spring
From the lone tomb of old affections Hope
And JOY, and great Ambition will rise up
As they have risen, and their deeds will be
Brighter than those engraven on the scroll
Of past centuries. Even now the sea
OF coming years, beneath whose mighty waves
Life's great events are heaving into birth,
Is tossing to and fro, as if the winds
OF heaven were prisoned in its soundess depths
And struggling to be free.
Weep not that time
Is pressing on, it will ere long reveal
A brighter era to the nations Hark!
Along the wales and mountains of the earth
There is deep portentous murmuring
Like the swift rush of subterranean streams
Or like the mingled sounds of earth and air,
When the fierce tempest with sonorous wing
HeaveS his deep folds upon the rushing winds
And hurrles onward, with his might of clouds
Against the eternal mountains. 'Tis the voice
OF infant Freedom, and her stirring call
Is heard and answered in a thousand tones
From every hilltop of her Western home,
And lott breaks across old oceans flood
And Freedom! Freedom!" is the answering
shout
OF nations starting from the spell of years.
The dayspr1ng-s ee-'tis Frightening in the heav
ems
The watchmen of the night have caught the sign,
From tower to tower the signal fires flash free,
And the deep watchword, like the rush of seas,
That heralds the volcanoes bursting flame
Is sounding DER the earth. Bright years of Hope
And Life are on the wing. Yon glorious bow
OF Freedom, Bonded by the hand of God,
Is spanning Times dark surges It's high arch
A type of Love and Mercy-on the clouds
Tells that the many storms of human life
Will pass in silence; and the sinking waves,
Gathering the forms of glory and of peace,
Reflect the undimmed brightness of the heavens