The Grenada gazette. (Grenada, Miss.) 1885-18??, 1886-01-02
A VISION.
The New Years Night Of o Conscience
stricken and Unhappy Man.


The New Years Night Of q Conscience.
Stricken and Unhappy Man.
An old man stood in the New Years
night at the window, and gazed with q
look of restless despair upon the i'm
mutable, ever-blooming heaven, and
out over the still, pure, white earth,
w%hereupon there was no n so ioyless
and sleepless IS he. Fer his grave
stood near to him. 1t vas covered
only with the snow of age, not with
the green of youth; and he brought
with him thither out of his whole rich
life nothing but errors and sins n
sickness-a ruined body, q desolated
soul, a breast full of poison, an old age
full of remorSe. The fair days OF his
youth wandered about him now like
ghosts, and they bore him back again
to that clear morning when his father
first placed him at the cross-road OF
life, the right hand leading by the
sunny ways Of virtue into a wide,
peaceful land, full of light and of har-
vests; the left, down into the moleways
of vice toward a black cavern, full of
housekeeping poison, full of darling
>erpents and dark, sultry lamps. All!
the serpents hung about his breast, and
the poison-drops upon his tongue, and
he knew now where he was.
Knowing not what he did, and with
unspeakable grief, he cried out to
Heaven: "Give me my youth once
more! Oh father, place me once more
upon the cross-road, that | may choose
o~therwise!'
But his father and bis youth were
long gone. He saw wandering lights
dancing on the marshes and dying out
upon Gods Acre, and he said: These
are my sinful days!' He saw a star
fly out from the heaven, to glimmer in
its fall, and to be eXtlnguished on the
earth. That is IT, said his bleeding
heart, and the serpent teeth of remorse
gnawed again into his wounds.
His burning fancy showed him creep
ing night-wanderers upon the roof, and
the windmill threw up its arms threat
ening to crush him. and a mask left be-
hind in the dead-house assumed by de-
grees his own features. Suddenly. in
the midst of this tumult, music for the
New Year tloated down from the
tower, like distant church songs. He
was deeply moved. He looked around
the horizon and over the wide earth,
and thought Of his youthful friends,
who now, happier and better than he,
were teachers for the world. fathers of
happy children, and favored men, and
he said: "Oh, l also could be happy,
dear parents, had l fulfilled your New
Years wishes and Instructions"
In the ~feverish memories of Ills
youth, it seemed to him that the mask,
with his features, raised itself up in the
dead-house; finally, through the super
stition which discerns spirits and the
future on New Years night, it became
a living youth, in the position of the
beautiful boy of the Capitol pulling
out a thorn, and his formerly bloom
ing face dance weird and bitter before
him.
He could look no more; lie covered
his eyes; hot tears streamed down upon
the snow; again he softly sighed, hope
less and unconscious: Come again, O
youth, come again.
And it came again; for on that New
Years night he had only dreamed thus
fearfully. He was still a youth; yet his
errors had been no dream. But he
thanked God that he, still young, might
turn aside from the foul ways of vice,
and could follow the sunny path which
leads to the fair land of harvests. Turn
aside with him, o youth, if thou stand,
est upon his wandering way! This
rightful dream will in future be thy
Judge; but if thou shouldst n day
call out, full of grief: Come again, O
beautiful YOUTH so shall it never re.
turn again VT, Wisdom and Philoso.
phy of Richter.