The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1877-12-27
THE CLOSING YEAR.
GEORGE D. PRENTICE.

'Tis midnights holy hour-and silence now
Is brooding, like gentle spirit, o'er
The still and pulselcss world. Hnrk! on
the winds
The BELLS deepest tones are swelling. Tis
the knell
Of the departed year.
No funeral train
Is sweeping past; yet OIL the stream aud
With melancholy light, the moonbeams
Like pale, spotless shroud; the air is
stirred
As by mourner's sigh; and OH yon cloud,
That floats SO still and placidly through
heaven,
The spirits Of the season, seem to stand
Young Spring, bright Summer, Autumn's
solemn form,
And Winter with his aged locks-and
breathe
In mournful cadenccs, that come abroad
Like the far winG-harp's wild and touching
wall,
A melancholy dirge DER the dead Year,
Gone from the earth forever.
'Tis time
For memory and for tears. Within the
deep,
Still chambers of the heart spectre 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 loyeliness
On the dead waste of life. That spectre lifts
The coffin. lid of hope and Joy and love,
And, bending mournfully above the pale,
Sweet forms that slumber there, scatters
dead flowers
Der what has passed to nothingness.
The Year
Hos gone, and with it, many a glorious
throng
Of happy dreams. It's mark is on each
brow,
Its shadow in each heart. In its swift
course
1t waved its sceptre 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 reyelry, where thronged
The bright and joyous, and the fearful vail
Of stricken ones is heard where erst the song
Anu rtCkleSS shout icsouiueu' As Pe''sSu
The battlc-plain, where sword and spear and
Flashed in the light of mid-day-and the
strength
Ofscrried hosts is shivered, and the grass,
Green from the soil of carnage, waves above
The crushed and mouldering skeleton. 1t
came
Aud faded like a wreath of mist at eve;
Yet, ere it melted i'll the viewlesS air,
1t heralded its millions to their home
In the dim land of dreams.
Remorselcss 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, and forever. The proud bird,
The condor of the Andes, that can soar
Through heavens unfathomable depths, or
brave
The fury of the northern hurricane,
And bathe his plumage in the thunders
home,
Furls his broad wings at nightfall, and sinks
To rest upon his mountain-crag. But Time
Knows not the weight Of sleep or weari-
Hess,
And nights deep darkness has no chain to
bind
His rushing pinion. Revolutions sweep
Der earth, like troubled visions DER the
breast
Of dreaming sorrow; cities rise and sink
Like bubbles OH the water fiery isles
Spring blazing from the ocean, and go back
To their mysterious caverns; mountains
rear
To heaven their bald and blackcned 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, loveliest OF their train,
Shoot from their glorious spheres and pass
away,
To darkle in the trackless-void yet Time,
Time, the tomb-buildcr, holds his fierce
career,
Dark, stern, all-pitiless, and pauses not
Amid the mighty wrecks thatstrew his path,
To sit and muse, like other conquerors,
J;nnn tb, fnarfnl ruin he has wrought,