The Highland weekly news. [volume] (Hillsborough [Hillsboro], Highland County, Ohio) 1853-1886, 1874-01-01
THE REM0RSE OF A NIGHT.
a Dream of the Old and New
Year.

- DHChAA OA 'hO OAo saANA NC "
.--,-, Year.
Translated from the German of John Paul Richter
The last night Of the year was
about to expire; the winds, after q
day of storminess, had subsided into
slumber; the white earth lay out
spread, like a shrouded map, under
the moon; and innumerable stars
arose out from the remotest abysses
of heaven, twinkling as brightly as
though they had but then begun
their existence, and were never to
suffer impairment. Eleven o'clock
had tolled from the tower of an an
cient Gothic church; and as the vi
brations died away on the transpar-
ent air, an Old Man drew nigh to the
window of dark room, in the desc
late dwelling of which he had long
been the solitary tenant, and cast his
dull, despairful eyes upward towards
the immovable armament, and from
thence down on the blank waste of
the earth, and then breathed groan-
ing prayer, that those eyes might
never survey that armament Or that
earth again. Wretched was he, in
truth, that Old Man, beyond all par
allel and beyond all consolation-for
his grave lay open for him, as it
seemed, by his side; it was thinly
covered over, not by the flowers of
Youth, but by the SHOWS of Age; and
when, heartsick of the sight, he look
ed away from it into himself, he saw
that the sole fruits that he had gath
cred from long and eventful life
were sins, regrets, and maladies-a
decayed body, plague-smitten soul,
a bosom full of bitterness, and an old
age full of remorse The beautiful
days of his youth now came again
before him like ghosts, and re-sum-
moned to his remembrance the cheer
ful morning upon which his venera-
BILE father had first placed him upon
the great Cross-road of Life-a road
which, trodden on the right hand,
conducts the pilgrim along the noon
day path of Virtue into a spacious,
joyous land, abounding in sunbeams,
haryests, and angelic spirits, but
which, followed on the left, betrays
him through lampless and miry ways,
into the rueful wilderness of Vice,
where serpents forever swarm, and
pestilence chokes the atmosphere,
and to quench his burning thirst, the
sluggish black rivers yield him but
slime poison.
Alasl the serpents were now coiled
about him-the poison was rilling
through his heart! Alas for him! he
knew too well which road he had
chosen-where he was-and what he
must undergo-for eternity-for
eternity!
With an anguish, with an agony,
with despair, that language cannot
even family portray, he uplifted his
withered arms toward heaven, clasp
ed his hands, and cried aloud, o!
give me back, give me back my youth!
o. my father, lead me once more to
the Cross-road, that I may once more
choos-, and this time choose with |
foreknowledge!
But his cries wasted themselves
idly upon the frozen air, for his faith
er was no more, and his youth was
no more-both had alike long, long
ago evanished, never to reappear
He knew this, and he wept-yes,
that miserable old man wept; but his
tears relieved him not; they were like
drops of hot lava, for they trickled |
from burning brain.
He looked forth, and he saw fit !
ting lghts-wills-o -the-wisp = dane
ing over the morasses and becoming
extinguished in the burial grounds;
and he said, Such were my riotous
days of folly! He again looked forth,
and he beheld a star fall from heaven
to earth, and there melt away in
blackness that left no trace behind,
and he said, l am that star!-and
with that woeful thought were torn
open anew the leprous wounds in his
bosom, which the serpents that clung
around him would never suffer to be
healed.
His morbid imagination, wander
ing abroad till it touched on the con
fines of frenzy, showed him figures of
sleep walkers traversing like shadows
the roofs of the houses:-the chin
neys widened into furnaces vomiting
forth flames and monsters wind
mills lifted up their giant arms, and
threatened to crush him and for
gotten spectre, left behind in a de-
serted charnel-house, glared on him
with a horrible expression of maig-
nifty, and then Knocked his terror by
assuming his features.
On sudden there flowed out upon
the air a deep, rich, and solemn
stream of music. 1t came from the
steeple of the old Gothic church, as
the bells announced the birth of the
new year, for it was now the twelfth
hour. Its cadences fell with thrill
ing distinctness upon the ear and the
heart of the Old Man; and every tone
in the melody, through the agency of
that mysterious power which sound