The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1880-09-09

! only pray that where you've gone
The sun forever shines,
And tender hands for you have drawn
The isothermic lines.
For the Citizen.
In the Depths.
The memory of our beloved dead is
ever with US. The air is filled with
shadOwy faces. The tender touch sFof
vanished hands" is. upon our brow, and
like strains OF sweet remembered music
we hear voices that have long been
hushed on earth. The last look of our
loved ones is mirrored on our memory
the last fond pressure of the hand is felt
| thrObbing along our veins, and the
whispered farewell from the dear, silent
| lips is ever echoing in our heart of
hearts. Oh! is it a long, last farewell?
| Upon the iron-clasped pages of destiny
has "never again" been written?
"Oh, mortall swayed bither and thither by
Doubt
What are we hut sentient enigma, within
and without?n
All human philosophy stops at the
verge of the grave; it can go no farther.
Humanity can never answer the trip
lie question, Whence did l come? Why
am | here? Whittier shall l go? What
unparalleled loneliness, what sense
of heart-breaking desertion, comes over
us as we stand by the graves of our
loved dead One by one they have
dropped away from our life into
the hush of the, tomb to encounter
the dark secret alone in the silence of
its immemorial and boundless mystery
Never more shall we hear their gentle
voices. Never more walk with them
beneath the starlight.
''Moaning and living,
Dying and loving
the days pass in their weird length, and
the night shadows gather in their
gloom The scenes and sounds that fall
upon our eyes and ears, only having
passed by few days, nay, hours before,
come back to our paralyzed senses like
faded pictures seen long ago in some
dim old gallery of the past which
sound, a wayside flower, a perfume
stealing on the air, recalls. If there
were mistakes and faults, the grave has
shut them in; they are no longer re-
membered. But each kind word and
gentle act is stamped in our memory as
with some tremendous due! And the
words we should not have spoken come
suddenly when least expected like the
vivid chain lightning upon the storm
cloud, startling, sickening and crushing
US, and we gasp for breath, involunta-
rily reaching outward and upward our
hands in an agony that sweeps through
| eternity and faints at Jehovah's feetl
Death has at all times appalled, hu-
manity. To the loving, clinging ma
ture it brings impenetrable gloom,
shrouding the universe in its deepest
pail. The sunshine that brings joy to
the happy, brings pain to the stricken
| heart. The birds cheerful songs serve
emily to deepen the despair that fills the
poor rihed sick heart, whose every ten
drill has enwrapped the dear one that
lies in the new-made grave at our feet
like the delicate vine that has closely
twined its fibres around the strong and
mighty oak that the cruel storm in its
mightier strength has leveled in the dust,
and as pOwerless in itssprostrationi
Hour after hour, day after day, we sit
! listlessly with folded hands, powerless
to face the duties of life; unfit to live,
unfit to die. Yea, like a stagnant
stream, "curled by no eddies, freighted
with no barques, bearing no drift" We
| live, yet we do not seem to live! All
plans for the future fall away from our
| life, and energy and hope fold their
weary wings and droop with sombre
eyes upon the ruin that remorseless
death brings. The gay laughter that
sometimes falls upon our ears, mocks
US and makes our flesh creep
Even the holy songs that tell of faith,
and the glorious visions of angels
thronging the Great White Throne,
make our heart quiver, and wiring us
with an unaccOuntable anguish, surg
| ing through our being, that never yet
| found an outlet in words from mortal
lips! oh, Deathl Oh, Death!
| - tI,a
| When will the clouds be riftl
| When will the storm be hushed?
1t is so daik, so lonely, so dreary"
The untouched, whose faces have
never been washed in tears, in whose
homes sits no vacant chair, and into
| whose lives come no shadowy missing
faces, cannot understand our anguish.
There can be no sympathy, intense and
profound only by those who have known
the same grief. Yea, even then, we diff
fer one from another. The wealth of
the soul is measured by how much it
can feel its poverty by how little.
| IT'S written, "man was born to die,
and dies to live again !" Down with
fear, doubt and trembling; none but
fools can doubt. He who, guided by a
/ Fathers love, walked the wild foam
tossed waves of Galilee and babe them
be still, can lift the pail that enshrouds
our life, hush the stormy grief-lashed
waves, and bring peace to the poor,
darkened, stricken soul.
He alone can comfort. When Mary
and Martha wept over a brothers
grave, lie who spoke as mortal man
never spake, mingled his tears and sor-
rows with them
"Lord, / have laid my heart upon Thy altar,
But cannot get the wood TO burn;
| II hardly flares ere it begins to falteT,
| And 10 the dark returns.
cold sap or night-iall'n dew has dAmped the
| fuel,
| In vain my breath would fame provoke;
/ Yet see, at every poor attempts renewal,
To Thee aseeuds the smoke.
''Tis all l have-smoke, failure, foiled en-
| deavor,
Coldness and doubt and palsied lack;
Such as l have, send Thee, Perfect GiYer,
Send Thon Thy mercy back"
EsTELLE VEHsE.
| The Hills AuC 81 so.