New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1875-07-08
And the vast hall was filed in every part
With silent crowds, stony in face and heart.


] ong at the scene, bewildered and amazed
The trembling clerk in speeches. wogder gazcd;
Then from TIE table by HE greed made bold
He seized goblet and knife OF gold,
And suddenly nom their seats the guests uspraug'
The archer ssed his arrow AT their CALL,
shattcrirs the lainbcnt iewe! on the wan.
A n VIZ tbc 1 aner ' TIC Incrs clerk jay dead
The writer of this legend then records
It's ghostly application in these words
The image is the Adversary old,
Whose Reckoning finger points 10 realms OF gold
Cur lusts and passions are the downward star
That leads the soul from diyiner air;
The archer, Death: tie flaming Jewel, Iife
Terrestrial goods. the goblet and the knife;
The knights aud ladies' all whose flesh and bone
iiy avaricc have been hardened into stone;
The clerk Tire scholar whom the love OF PER- ,
Tempts from his books and from his nobler self.
The scholar and the world The endless strife,
The discord in the harInonies Of life;
The love of learning, the sequestered hooks,
And I'll The sweet serenity of books;
THE marGct-placc. the eager love of gam.
Whose ann is vanity, and whose end is pam!
But why, you ask ne, should this tale be told
To men grown Old, 81 who are growing oid'
Ii is too In tel All, nothing is toe late
Till the tired heart shall cease TO palrItate.
alto learned Greek at eighty: Sprnnclcs
Wrote his grand d-dpus. and Slmondes
When each had numbered more than iolirscofe years
Aud rhcophrastus, a. fcurscoro and ten
Had but BEGUN his Characters OF Men.
Chauccr nj Woodstock with the nightlDgales,
st sixty T,tc the Canterbury Tales;
Goethe at WcimaT, tOiiing To the last,
Completed Fans; when eighty years were past.
These are indeed exceptions; hut they snow
How far the gai-srcain of our youth may HOW
Into the arctic regions of our lives,
Where little else than life itself survives
As the barometer foTctells the ,torm
While 81 III the skies are clear the weather warm,
so something in liz. aS Old are draws near,
i;otraNs the pressure of the atmosphere.
The niIable mercury. ere We are aware,
Dcsocn,ls the elastic ladder Oi HE ar;
The tell ale blood Ia aI.rTy and VEN
Sinks from its higher levels in the BRAN;
Whatever poet orator. Ur SAGE
Nav aay Of il, oil age is still Old age.
!. is the waning. nOu tno crescent moon.
The dusk of evening, noi the blaze OF noon
l. Is rot strength, but weakness; NOT desire,
But It's sgrtcasc: not the fierce heat 0i ble,
The burning and consuming element,
Bat that of ashes and of elaberS spent,
I'm which some living sparss Wc stiIl discern,
Enough 20 warm, but not enough to barn.
What tbenf Shall We sit idly down and say
The night hath come; il is no longer day!
he night haih MOI yet come; We are not quite
Cut oh from Labor by the failing hight;
Something remains for rs % do or dare;
Even the Oldest tree some fruit nay bear;
Not 0EIipus COOneIs, or Grcck ode.
or tales Of PILGRIMS tina! one morning rode
Ont OF tllc rat way OF the IahGrd Inn.
But other some thing. would We but begin;
For axe is opportunity 10 less
Than youth itself, though ~ another dress,
And a. tie evening twilight fades away
The sky is filed with stars. invisible hy day.