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


It's midnight,s holy hour and silence now
Is brooding. like gentle spirit, DER
winds
The bells deepest tones are swelling IT'S the
Of the departed Year.
No funeral train
Is sweeping past; yet on the stream and wood,
With me lancholy light, the moonbeams rest,
Like pale, spotless shroud; the air is stirred,
AS A. by z mourner's sigh and on yon cloud,
The spirits of the seasons seem to stand
Young Spring, bright Summer, Autumn's solemn
form,
And Winter with his aged locks--and breathe
In mournful cadences. that come abroad
Like the far wind-harp's wild and touching wall
A melancholy dirge DER the dead Year,
Gone from the earth forever.
It's time
For memory and for tears. Within the deep.
Still chambers of the heart a specter dim.
Whose tones are like the wizard voice of Time,
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
The cofiin-lid of hope and Joy and love-.
And. bending mournfully above the pale
Sweet forms that slumber there. scatters dead
Der what has passed to nothingness.
The Year
Has gone, and, with it. many glorious throng
" 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 its pallid hand
Upon the strong man, and the naughty form
is fallen and the flashing eye is dim.
1t trod the hall of revelry. where thronged
The bright and Joyous, and the fearful wall
Ut 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 serried hosts is shivered, and the grass,
Green from the soil of carnage, waves above
The crushed and Wondering skeleton. 1t came
And faded like a wreath of mist at eve;
Yet, ere 1t melted in the yiewless air,
It heralded its millions to their home
In the dim land Of dreams.
Remorseless Time-
Fierce spirit of the glass and scythet what power
Can stay him in his silent course, or melt
His iron heart t.. pity? On, still on
he presses, and forever. The proud bird,
The condor of the Andes that can soar
Through heavens unfathopdble depths or brave
The fury of the northern hurricane,
And battle his plumage in the thunder's home,
Furls his broad wings at nightfall. and sinks
down
forest upon his mountain rag-but Time
Knows not the weight of sleep or WEAKNESS,
And nights deep darkness has no chain to bind
His rushing pinion. Revolutions sweep
Ger earth, like troubled visions DER 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 cayerns 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 Plead. loveliest of their train,
Shoot from their glorious spheres and pass away
10 darlsle in the tlackless void: yet Time,
Time the tomh-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.