The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1884-12-27

Of the departed year.
No funeral train
Is sweeping past; yet on the stream and wood,
With melancholy light. the moonbeams rest,
Like pale spotleSs shrowd; the air is stirred,
As by mourners sigh, and on yon cloud,
That floats so still and placidly through heaven,
The spirits of the seasons seem to stand
Young Spring, bright Summer, Autumn's solemn
form.
And Winter with his aged locks-and breathe
In mournful cadences. that come abroad
Like the far wind -harps mild and touching wall,
melancholy dirge DER the dead year,
Gone from the earth forever.
'Tis time
For memory and for tears. Within the deep,
Still chambers of the heart spectre dim.
Whose tones are like the wizard voice of 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. That spectre lifts
The coffin lid of hope and joy, and love,
And, bending mournfully above the pale
Sweet forms that slumber there scatters dead
flowers
Ger what has passed TO nothingness.
The Year
Has gone, and. with it, many sloFioHs throHg
OF happy Dreams Its mark is on each brow,
Its shadow on each heart. In its swift course,
1t waved its sceptre o'er the beautiful,
And they are not. 1t laid its pallid hand
Upon the strong man, and the naughty form
Is fallen, and the flashing eye is dim.
It trod the hall of reyelry, where thronged
The bright and joyous and the fearful wall
OF stricken ones is heard, where erst the song
And reckless shout resounded. 1t passed DER
The battle plain where sword and spear and shield
Flashed in the light of midday-and the strength
OF serried hosts is shivered, and the grass,
Green from the soil of carnage, waved above
The crushed and mouldering skeleton. It came
And faded like a 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.
Rcmorseless 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.
And bathe his plumage in the thunders home,
Furls his broad wings at nightfal, and sinks down
To rest upon his mountain crags-but Time
Knows not the weight offs sleep or weariness,
And nights deep darkness has no chain 10 bind
His rushing pinion. Revolutions sweep
Der earth, like troubled visions DER the breast
of dreaming sorrow; cities rise and sink
Like bubbles on the water; fairy isles
Spring, blazing, from the ocean, and go back
To their mysterious caverns; mountains rear
To heaven their bald and blackened cliffs, and bow
Their tall heads to the plain; new empires rise
Gathering the strength of hoary centuries,
And rush down like the Alpine avalanche,
Startling the nations; and the very stars,
Yon bright and burning blazonry of God,
Glitter awhile in their eternal depths,
And like the Pleiad, loveliest of their train,
Shoot from their glorious spheres, and pass away,
To darkle in the trackless void;-yet Time,
Time, the tombbuilder, holds his fierce career,
Dark, stern, allpitiless, and pauses not
Amid the mighty wrecks that strew his path,
To sit and muse, like other conquerors,
Upon the fearful ruin he has wrought.