Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1875-05-07
ASHES.

Thou art lord of all people and nations;
And humbly they bow at thy throne:
Thou art despot of all desolations,
And all the worlds despotS are thine.
All ages, all creeds, all conditions,
Supinely must sink to thy sway
With an imbecile, abject submission
Grim god of the ngdom-Decay!
There is never a glory that flashes.
But is ruined and rots in thy rust;
The worlds wall is ''ashes to ashes"
Its heartcry is ''dust to dustF'
All things that we prize we surrender
| The gems OF the past-and to-day.
The pride of our life and its splendor.
Slow mouldering into decay.
We are sore with the fret and the fever.
We wander beWildered and blind
But calmly thou watchest forever
''The mills Of the gods" as they grind.
Gaunt wheels with their dirge-likeintcning
That are wearing the old world away,
In mOurnful monotonous droning-
The mill stones of Dust and Decay.
The face that is shrunken and shriveled
Shows out like famine in stone:
And thy cynical curses are driveled
From lips that e misery's own,
Thy forehead is lurid in pallor,
Thy locks are disheveled and gray,
And thy vestments still reek with tht
squalor
That reigns in thy kingdom-Decay.
But thine eyes-are bitter and burning,
Like the wine of thy lees,
And their nameless expression returning,
Our gaze, seems to fire us and freeze,
They are fateful. and fell, and abysmal,
Our golden gods crumble to clay
Before them-dull, dreary, and dismal,
Dissolving to Death and Decay.
On graves that are sunken and sodden.
Is planted the Pompeian throne;
On souls that are tortured and trodden,
On hearts that are turning to stone,
Is rested thy mercilesS piniOn,
Scorched wings that are gray
Deep.laid is thy dusky dominion
In the blackened fire-crypts of Decay.
There the fires never fail for our crying
The furnace-fames scoff at our fears
They can never be stayed by our sighing,
They are not to be quenched by our tears
While our jewels melt down into cinderS,
And our idols dissolve into clay,
We are helpless s-defenseless- -naught him
ders
The on-coming doom of Decay.
Dost thou sneer at Loves roses and lau-
rels ?
DOst question us-''What is your Fame?"
Dost thou smile at our ''minds" and our
'smorals?"
Az IL
Doth mutter ''What matter if guerdons
On crosses your strivings shall pay?
If you carry LIES crowns or its burdens,
When both shall be swept to Decay!'
"And why do you scorn to be carried
To rot with the pauper-unless
You hope your sins shall be buried
In your grand mausoleum-Success?"
The satire is bitter and biting
That turks in this insolent way
OF clouding quick lives with the blighting
And mould of thy hngdom-Decay!
Thou art eaustie, and cold, and chaotic,
Thy calmness SCOTS at us in scorn;
And thy cruel command is despotic-
''To dust with all things thes are bornl"
As dust when we drift down the current
OF winds that are wand'ring for aye,
For thou signest on all the death warrant
Infexible doom of Decay.
All Joys that the spirits remembers,
ALI loves, and beliefs, all desires,
Fall away into idle, dead embers,
Burnt out in the fiercest of fires,
Thou art lord of all peoples and nations
Supinely we sink to thy sway;
Thou art deSpOt in all thV deSOlatiOnS--
Grim god of the kingdom-Decay!