The Newberry herald. [volume] (Newberry, S.C.) 1865-1884, 1878-01-09

Of the departed year.
No funeral train
Is sweeDing past; yet on the stream and
wood,
With melancholy light, the moonbeams rest,
Like a pale, spotless shroud; the air IS
stirred
As by a mourner's sigh; and on yon cloud,
That floats so still and placidly through
heaven,
The spirits Of the season seems to stand
Young Spring, bright Summer, Autumn's
solemn form,
And Winter with his aged locks-and breathe
In mournfnl 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 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 loveliuess
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 nothingoesS.
Has gone, and, with it, many a glorious
throng
Of happy dreams. Its mark is on each
brow,
Its shadow on each heart. In its swift
course
1t waved its sceptre DER the beautiful,
And they are not. 1t laid its paid hand
Upon the strong man, and the naughty
form
Is fallen and the flashing eye is dim,
It trod the hall Of revelry, where thronged
The bright and joyous, and the fearful wall
Of stricken ones is heard where erst the song
And reckless shout resounded. It passed
DER
The battle-plain. where sword and spear and
shield
Flashed in the light of mid-day-and the
strength
Of serried hosts is shivered, and the grass,
Green from the soil of carnage, waven above
The crushed and mouldering skeleton. 1t
came
And faded like wreath Of midst at eve:
Yet, ere it melted in tie vicwless air,
It heralded it's 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, and forever. The proud bird,
The condor ofthe Andes, that can soar
Through heavens unfathomable depths, O,
brave
| The fury of the northern hurricane,
And bathe his plumage in the thunder's
home,
Furls his broad wings at nightfal, and sinks
down
To rest upon his mountain-crac. But Time
Knows not the weight of sleep or WEAKNESS
And nights deep darkness has no chain to
bind
His rushing pinion. Revolutions sweep
O'er 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 bach
To their mysterious caverns; mountains real
To heaven their bald and blackened cliffs
| and bow
Their tall heads to the plain; new empire;
| 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, lovelest of their train,
Shoot from their glorious spheres and pas
away,
To darkle in the trackless-Toid: yet Time,
Time, the tomb-builder, holds his flerc
career,
Dark, stern. all-pitiless, and pauses not
Amid the mighty wrecks that streW his path
To sit and muse, like other conquerors,
Upon the fearful ruin he has wrought.