The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1877-12-20
THE CLOSING YEAR.

It's nidnight's holy hour-and silence now
The sfiii and pulseless world. Hark. on the
winds
The bells deepest tones are swelling lis the
OF the departed Year.
No funeral train
Is sweeping past yst on The stream and wood
Like pale. epotless shroud: the air Is stunned,
As By mourners sigh and on yon cloud,
That floats 50 still and placldly through heaven.
Young Spring. bright Summer, Autumn's solemn
form,
And Winter. with his aged locks and breathe
Lake the far wind-barp's wild and touching wall
melancholy drge Der the dead Year,
Gone from the earth forever.
For memory and for tears Within the deep,
Still chambers of the heart, aspecser dim;
Heard from the tomb of ages points its cold
And solemn finger To the beautiful
And holy visions that have passed away
And left no shadow of their loveliness
On the dead waste of life. That specter lifts
Tae coiiin-hd of hope and joy and love.
And. bending mournfully above the pale
Sweet forBs that slumber there. scatter dead
Der what has passed to nothingness.
Has gone and with it. many glorious throng
OF happy dreams. Its mark Is on each brow,
Its shadow In each heart. In its swift course
1t waved its specter DER the beautiful.
And they are not. 1t laid lis palIid hand
Upon the strong man, and the naughty form
is fallen and the flashing eye Is dim.
The bright and Joyous, and tlse fearful wall
OF stricken ones is heard where erst the song
And reckless shout resounded. 1t passed Ger +,
The battie-plain. where sword and spear and
Flashed in the light of midday-and the strength
Of serried hosts IS shivered. and the grass.
Green from the soil of carnage, waves above
The crushed and mouldering skeleton. 1t came
And faded like a wreath of mist at eve;
Yet, ere it melted IN the yiewiess air,
II heralded its millions to their home
In the dim land OF dreams.
Remorseless Time
Fierce spirit of the glass and scythe. what power
Can stay him in his silent course, or melt
His iron heart to pity. On, still on
He presses. ard forever. The proud bird.
The condor of the Andes that can soar
Through heavens unfathonzdble depths. or brave
The fury of the northern hurricane.
And bafhe his plnmage in the thnnder's home.
Furls his broad wings at nightfall. and sinks
down
To rest upon his mountain-crag-bu Time
Knows not the weight of sleep or weariness,
And nights deep darkness has no chain to bind
Ger earth, ike troubled visions ,er the breast
OF dreaming sorrow; cities rise and sink,
Like bubbles on the water. fiery isles
Spring blazing from the ocean and go back
To their mysterious caverns mountains rear
To heaven their bald and blackened cliffs, and
bow
Their tall heads to the plain: new empires rise,
Gathering the strength of hoary centuries.
And rush down like the Alpine avalanche,
Startling the Nations; and the very stars,
Yon bright and burning blazonry of God,
Glitter awhile in their eternal depths,
And-like the Pleiad. loyeliest of their train.
Shoot from their glorious spheres and pass away,
To darkle in the trackless void: yet Time.
Time the tomb-builder holds his fierce career,
Dark, stern. all-pitiless. and pauses not
Amid the mighty wrecks that strew his path,
To sit and muse. like other conquerors,
pom the fearful ruin he has wrought.
George D. Prentice.