The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1882-12-14
The Old Year.

y iuS Suu "aiu 10 tAdt tuo ttii Il
drawing to a close. How quicIlI}
time flies! 1t seems but q little
while since We hailed it as the New
and welcomed it with smiling faces
The Happy New Year We called it.
and its early hours were one long
season of bright festivities and JOY.
Gus reveI. With its spring time
came bursting bud and dainty leafiet,
sunshine, sweetness and perfume;
warm, wooiDg winds and wild bursts
of bird song.
The brilliant bloom of summer
Its fullness; its fervor; it's plenty;i its
warm, bright days; it's pillows of
bloom and abundant fruitage. The
gorgeous tiuts and leafy pageantry;
the garnered harvests and soft, mel
low haze and dreamy hush of it's
golden autumn. So we drifted down
the tide of Time. By and by there
came vague sense Of something
gone-something grieved for. But,
In this work a-day world, no one
ever stops to miss anything until it
is lost forever; and when the autumn
faded, we were startled to find the
frost and blight-the trail of death
over all we loved and cherished
And Nature, silence crowned, await
ed the ending of life lived out, the
folding of the hands from which the
task had dropped away forever, and
the putting away of a shattered
crown.
The Old Year! We murmur the
words as of strange tongue, and
wonder can this be the snow-d raped
vision that came to us with the pomp
and pageantry of king but few
months ago! Now, faded, feeble
no, not fallen the whirling leaflets
settle upon his bear, and over all is
written "Death."
Slowly, silently, trailing great |
drops of blood over forest and field,
he has battled with Time. In his
youth, he brought us lavishly of
flowers and sunshine; grown wiser of
our needs, he poured prodigal gifts
into the lap of the husbandman, and |
the world laughed with joy at his
bounty. To the heart of childhood |
he brought lessons of love, of hope, |
of mercy; to youth, the fires of laud-
able ambitions and dreams of sue.
cess; to manhood, the golden harvest
of industry, of strength, of endur,
ance; to age, the sweet assurance
that they were one day nearer the
Golden Gate-one. long step nearer
ome.
Z o! dying year, how many house
hold idols lie shrouded in your 81
lence! How many sweet, broken
dreams and bright possibilities lie
with your fallen leaflets! How many
noble resolves, lost opportunities,
wasted energies and ruined hopes
sank into the eternal vastness of
your persisted hours!
Many a warm, hopeful life-whose
radiant morning sky gave promise
of glorious noontide, and who
dreamed of life's great drama only
as fairy revel-has burned itself
out on your bosom, discouraged,
despairing. Many lives, too, have
gone out, leaving only blot and
stain, over whose memory hangs the
tattered pail of doubt, distrust and
tears; and all adown the Old Years
pathway we find the graves of the
loved and lost.
Over the gray years palsied limbs
we weep tears of tenderest regret.
We turn away with relucta nee from
the faded face of the dead. Blessed.
indeed, is the heart which can say
to day: 81 have done what could
for the good of my kind" Let not
the coming year pass into the old
without having added something to
the good Of humanity; without hav.
ing made some heart HAMMER. soma