Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1882-06-03
The Dying Year.
BY w. E. MUNsEY.

l.
first day i'm 1871. Last night the
old year died. Did you see that old
man, so pale, frail and ghoStly,
who stood out on the bleak and icy
hills last night, leaning in his
decrepitude upon the feeble arm OF
his last surviving but dying chill,
the departing December?
The chaplet of buds, flowers and
fruit, wreathed around his brow by
Spring, Summer and Autumn We're
frosted by Winter his sandles were
old and covered with snow anu
mud his garments were battered,
and giistening with sleet were sold
ed around his wasted form and his
pulse quivered like an icy thread in
his chilled and shEunken arm.
Who was lie? He was the child Of
remorseless Time. Hewas one Of
a numerous family Whose genealu-
gy presents us no two cOntempOra-
ries. The birth of one has always
been proceeded by the death of the
solitary other The waiting requi-
ems over the death of one have
always ended in iuliabies over the
cradle of its successor. Who was
he? He was the Old Year. Last
night, Eternity's horolage tolled
out low twelve upon its sounding
bell. 1t was his death knell-and
at that lonely hour while we slept,
when cadaverous ghosts are tabled
to creep amid the ivied ruins of
castles old, and shrek through the
creyices of tottering church belfries,
and dry old bones shake and CHATTER
in their vaults in churchyards, he
died, and the spirits of Winter
hearSed him in cold cloud drawn
by boreal winds, and drove him out
to sepulchral oblivion and buried
him in grave whose cerements are
eternal.
He will return no moreno, for
ever.
Farewell, Old Year let thy cold
ghost mingle with the shades OF
thy predecessors, but let it not come
back, oh, let it not come back to
haunt us when we die.
Gone, but he has left his foot
prints. The lovely babe the moth
er so fondly kissed last New Year
is not here this morning. 1t simply
came, smiled, then wept and depart
eel. 1t seemed to come from heaven
and TO stay just long enough to
make us love it, and then to return
Its mission appears to have been to
gather up our affections and carry
them back to heaven with it, to
make us love heaven more and
earth less. Some beautiful girls
and noble boys, whose laugh and
shout enlivened our. homes during
the last Christmas and New Year
are not with us to-day. Dreamless,
they sleep beneath the SHOWS of the
winter in our neighboring cemeieT-
les, and foul decay has Inarred their
lovely forms. In placing the house
in order for these holidays we have
found toy, shoe, hat, II book,
unclaimed and Ownerless, which
made us weep anew. Oh, shall
they ever live again? The old
armchair which sat in the corner,
and was tenanted by smiling old
age one year ago, is empty nOW-its |
occupant il gone and some of US are
fatherIeSs. The head of the table il |
also vacated, the dust lies heavily !
upon the mantlepiece, and disorder |
has crept into the family chamber,
with some of us mother is dead too. |
Some friend is gone, some familiar |
football is missed, some well-known |
volt is hushed. The rece,ling year |
has touched us somewhere. We |
are a year Older, a year nearer the |
grave. This year may land us in |
heaven or hell. Are you ready to
die? If die we must, this year,
may we ascend to heaven. But ar
the misty spirit of the Old Yer
wreathed away into the dark dim
past, the angels of God sang the |
birth hymn of the New Year.
And still you may hear the in
spring touches of the dying music
still lingering i'm themountain tops, |
and nerve corridors leading to the
minds SenSOrium to greet the hui
man soul. 1871 is here.
How many years since the world
was made | know not, neither does
any man. How many years since
man Was made | know not. Our |
chrOnOlOgieS cannot be absolutely |
relied upon. But it is 1871 years
since the infant Saviour WAS born,
wrapt in swaddIing- clothes, and
laid to sleep in II manager; eighteen
hundred and ;hirty-ti.ht years, |
1iA1 ItSUi-
rectiOn, and ascention to heaven.
The New Year is here, and with his
children. Two come crowned with
glitlering frost, and robes of trail
ing snow; two with tempest in
their fist, and stray sunbeams upon
their brOWs; four clothed in green
enamelled with buds, flowers, and |
fruit, and straited with golded ripe
ness; three with robes of red, vel
low, and purple; one in freezing |
nudity with Sceptre of ice. Be
fore the first may. pass we may be
dead, and the remaining eleven
may dance their rounds upon our |
graves.
No year has ever passed without |
some one dying whom we knew
and loved. Every succeeding year
marks its member and name upon
some tombstone in our cemetery.
Our burial grounds keep up the
record of the ages. This year will
be the date OF the death Of-s0me one
present. 1871 will be chisselled in
the marble which will mark some
of our graves. Who?