The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1874-01-02
THE CLOSING YEAR.
By GEORGE d. PRENTICE.

IT'S midniahts holy hour, and silence now
Is brooding like gentle spirit, Ger
The still and pulseless world. marx ON the winds
The bells deep tones are swelling us the knell
OF the departed year. No funeral train
Is sweeninq past; yet on the stream and wood,
With melancholy light, the moonpeams rest
like a uale, spotless shroud; the air is stirred
AS Inv n mourner's sigh aud ON yon cloud
That noats so still aud pacidly through heaven
The spirts Of the Seasons seem TO stand
Youna spring, bright sumner, Autumn's solemn
And Winter. with his aged locks-and breathe
In mournfui cadences, that come abroad
Like the far wind-harps via, touching wall,
A melanch oily dirge DER the dead year,
Gone from the earth forever
yris time
For memory and for tears. Within the Deep
sin chambers of the heart, specter dim,
whose tones are like the wizard voice of Time
Heard from the tomb OF ages, points its cold
And solemn finger 10 the beautiful
And holy visions that have passed away,
And left no shadow OF their loneliness
IN the dead waste of life. The specter lifts
The cofiin-lid of Hope and JOY, and Love,
And bending mournfuily above the pale,
Sweet forms that sluinber there, scatters dead
Der what has pissed to nothingness.
The year
Has gone, and with 1t many glorious throng
OF happy dreams. Its mark Is ON each brow,
IT'S shadow in each heart. In its swift course,
II waved its scepter DER the beautiful
And they are not 1t laid its pallid hand
Upon the strong man, and the naughty form
Is fallen and the flashing eye is dim.
IL trod the hall OF reyelry, where thronged
The bright and joyous, and the fearful wall
OF stricken ones Is heard where erst the song
And reckless shout resounded. 1t passed DER
The battle-plain, where sword, and spear, and
shield
Flashed in the light of midday, and the strength
OF serred hosts is shiyered, and the grass,
Green from the soil of carnage waves above
The crushed and mouldering skeleton. 1t came
And faded IKE wreath Of mist at eve;
Yet ere 1t melted in the viewless air,
1t heralded its millions to their home,
In the dim land of dreams.
Remorseless Time
Fierce spirit OF the glass and scythe! What power
( an stay him in his silent course, melt
II is iron heart TO pity On, still on,
HI presses, and forever. The proud bird,
1 ne condor OF the Andes, that can
Through heavens unbelievable depths, or brave
The fury Of the northern hurricane,
And oathe his plumage in the thunder's home,
Furls his broad wings at nightfall, and sinks down
To rest upon the mountain crag but Time
Knows not the weight of sleep or WEAKNESS,
And nights deep darkness has no chain to bind
His rushing pinion.
Revolutions sweep
Der the earth like troubled visions DER the breast
OF dreaming sorrow cities rise aud sink
Like bubbles on the water; fiery isles
Spring blazing from the ocean, and go back
10 tntlT NY pltTlpus CdNtTHs,
To heaven their bold and blackened cliffs and bow
Their tall heads to the plain and empires rise,
the strong Of hoary centuries,
And rush down, like the Alpine avalanche,
Startling the nations and the very stars,
Yon bright and glorious baZonry of God,
Glitter awhile in their eternal depths,
And, like the Plead, loveliest of their train.
Shoot from their glorious spheres and pass away
To darkle IN the trackless void; yet Time,
Time the tomb-buider holds his fierce career,
Dark, stern, all pitiess, and pauses not,
Amid the mighty wrecks that strew his path,
To sit and muse, like other conquerors.
IInnn the fearfnl ruin he hath Mrnn0ht.