Martinsburg independent. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1875-1900, 1884-01-05
The Closing Year.


The still and pulseless world. Hark!
on the winds,
The bells deep tones are swelling; lis
the knell
OF The departed year. No funeral train
Is sweeping past; yst,on the stream and
wood !,
With melancholy light, the moonbeams
Like rale,sp otless shropd; the sir i
stirred,
As IS / moafnea's sigh; and, a yan
cloud,
That foats 50 still aud plaeidls. thro'
heaven.
The spirits ofthe seasons seem TO stand,
Young Spring, BRIGHT Summer. AW-
tumn's solemn form,
And Winter, with his aged locks, and
breathe
In mournful cadences, that come abroad
Like the far Wind-larp's wild saild
touching wall.
A melancholy dirge Ger the dead year,
Gone from the earth forever.
'Iis time
For memory and fur sears. within tho
deep,
Still chambers of The heart, specter
dim,
Whose tones are Ike the wizard voice q
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 loveliness
On the dead waste of life. The spectre
lifts
The coflin-lid of Hope, and JOY, and
Love,
And bending mournfully above the pale,
Sweet forms that slumber there, scat
ters dead lowers,
Ger what has passed TO nothingness.
The year
Has gone,and with it, many a glorious
throng
OF happy dreams. lis mark is on each
brow,
Its shadow, in each heart. In its swift
course
1t waved it's sceptre DER the beautiful,
And they are not. Ii laid its pallid hand
Upon the strong man; and the naughty
form
Is fallen, and the flashing eye is dim.
1t trod the hall Of reyelry, where throng-
ed
The bright and joyous; and the fearful
OF stricken ones is heard, where erst
the song
And reckless shout resounded. 1t pass
ed Ger
The battle-plain, where sword, and spear
and shield,
FLASHED i'll the light of midday; and
the strength
OF serried hosts is shivered, and the
grass,
Green from the soil of carnage, waves
above
The crushed and moldering skeleton. 1t
came,
And faded like wreath of mist at eve !;
Yet, ere it melted in the viewless air,
1t heralded its 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 of the Andes, that can soar
Through heavens unfathomable
depths, or brave
The fury OF the northern hurricane,
home,
Furls his broad wing at night-fall, and
sinks down
To rest upon his mountain craig; but
Time
Knows not the weight of sleep or weari-
ness:
And Nights deep darkness has 30
chain to bind
His rushing pinion.
Revolutions sweep
Ger 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 90
back
tains rear
To heaven their bold and blackened
cliffs, and bow
Their tall heads to the plain; and en-
pires rise
Gathering the strength ofhoary centur-
les,
And rush down like the Alpine ava
lancbe,
Startling the nations; and the very
stars,
Yon bright and glorious blazonry of God
Glitter awhile in their eternal depths,
And, like the Pleads, loveliest Of their
train,
Shoot from their glorious spheres, and
pass away
To darkle in the trackless void; yet
Time,
Time, the tomb-builder, holds his fierce
career,
Dark, stern, all pitiless, and pauses not
Amid the mighty wrecks that strew
his path,
To sit and muse, like other conquerors,
Upon that fearful ruin he hath wrought.
Prentice.
The Lost Rivers Of Idaho.