Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1881-12-07
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1881.
TIE CLOSING SCENE.
BY T. BUCHANAN READ.

BY T. BUCHANAN READ.
TThe following is pronounced by the Westminster
,Beyiew to be unquestionably the finest American
poem ever written.l
Within the sober realms of Ieahess trees,
The russell year inhaled the dreamy air,
Like some tanned reaper in his hour of ease,
When all the fields are lying brown and bare.
The gray barns looking from their hazy hills,
DER the dun waters widening in the wales,
Sent down the ar greeting to the mills,
On the dull thunder Of alternate fails.
sU sights were melowed, and all sounds subdued,
The hills seemed farther and the stream sang low,
As in a dream the distant woodman hewed
His winter log, with many mufHed blow.
The embattlea forests, erewhile armed with gold,
Their banners bright with every martial hue,
Now stood like some sad, beaten host of old,
Withdrawn afar in Times remotest blue,
The dove scarce heard his signing mates COM
Dlaint:
And like star slow drowning IN the light,
The village church vane seemed to pale and faint,
The sentinel cock upon the hillside crew
Grew thrice-and all was stiller than before
Silent, till sope ling warder blew ..-r.
His alien horn, and then was heard no more.
Where rest the jay within the elms tall crest,
Made garrulous trouble round her unhedged
And where the oriole hung her swaying nest aIs
By every light wind like censor swung;
Where sang the noisy martins of the caves,
The busy swallows circling near,
Forboding, as the rustic mind believes,
An early harvest and plenteous year,
Where every bird that walked the vernal feast
SHOCK the sweet slumber from its wings at morn;
To warn the reaper of the rosy east
All now was sunless, empty and forlorn.
And croaked the crow through all the dreary gloom
Alone, the pheasant drumming in the vale,
Made echo in the distant cottage loom.
There was no bud, no bloom upon the bowers;
The spiders move tLer thin shrouds night by
night,
The thistle-down, the only ghost OF flowers,
Sailed slowly by-passed neiseless out of sight.
Amid all this-in this most dreary air,
And where the woodbine shed upon the porch
Its crimson leaves, as if the year stood there,
Firing the floor with its inverted torch;
amid all this-the center of the scene
The white-haired matron, with monotonous tread,
Piled the swift wheel, and with her joyless mien,
Sat like fate, and watched the flying thread.
She had known so-row-he had walked with her,
Oft supped and broke with her the ashen crust,
And in the dead leaves still she heard the stir
OF his thick mantle trailing in the dust.
While yet her cheek was bright with summer bloom,
And twice war bowed TO her his sable plume
Re-gave the sword to rust upon the wall.
Re-gave the sword, but not the hand that drew
And struck for liberty the dying blow:
Nor him who, to his sire and country true,
Fell mid the ranks of the invading foe.
Long, but not loud, the dropping wheel went on,
Like the low nurmur of hive at noon:
Long, but not loud, the memory of the gone
Breathed through her lips sad and tremuious
tune.
AT last the thread was snapped-her head was bowed
Life dropped the distaff through her hands serene
And loving neighbors snoothed her careful shroud
While Death and Winter closed the Autumn scene