The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1888-12-25

THE YEAR.
BY GRo. ID.

BY GHo. d. PRENTICE. &.
TITS midnights holy hour-and silence now
lie brooding like a gentle spirit, Ger -.
The still and pulseless world. Hark ON the winds
The bells deep notes are swelling. TITS the knell
OF the departed year.
No funeral train
Is weeping past yet on the stream and wood,
With melancholy light, the moonbeams rest,
Like a pale spotless shroud; the air is stirred
As by a mourner's sigh; and sn yon cloud
That floats SO still and placidly through heaven,
The spirits of the seasons seem to stand
Young Spring. bright Summer, Autum's solemn
And winter with his aged locks-and breath
In mournful cadences, that come abroad,
Like the far wind harp's wild and touching wall,
A melancholy dirge DER the dead Year,
Gone from the earth forever.
For memory and for tears. Within the deep,
Still chambers of the heart. a spectre dim,
Whose tones are like the wizard voice of Time,
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 cofin-lid of hope, and joy and love,
And, bending mournfqlly above the pale
Sweet forms that slumber there, scatter dead flowers
Ger what has passed to nothingness.
Has gone, and with it many a glorious throng
OF happy dreams. It's mark is on each brow,
Its shadow in each heart. In its swift course
1t waved its sceptre DER the beautiful,
And they are not. 1t laid its paid hand
Upon the strong man, and the naughty form r
Is fallen, and the flashing eyes is dim
1t trod the halls of revelry, when thronged
The bright and joyous, and the fearful wall
OF stricken once is heard, when eTst the song
And reckless about resounded. 1t passed DER
The battle plain, when sword and spear and shield
Flashed in the light of midday-and the strength
OF serried hosts is shrivered, and the grass
Grows from the soil Of carnage, waves above
The crushed and mouldering. 1t came "
And faded like a wreath OF midst at eve;
Yet, ere it melted in its viewless airs
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 soar
Through heavens Questionable depth, or brave
The fury of the northern herricane
And battle his plumage in the thuuder's home,
Furls his broad wings at night-fall, and sinks down
To rest upon the3mountain craig but Time
Knows not the weight of sleep or WEAKNESS,
And nights deep darkness has no 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 go back
To their mysterious caverns; mountains rear
To heaven their bold 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 blazenry of God,
Glitter awhile in their eternal depths,
And, like the Plead, loveiest of their train,
Shoot from their glorious spheres and pass away,
To darkle in the trackless void; yet Time,
Time the tomb-builder, holds its ferve career,
Dark. stern, all-pittlless, and pauses not
Amid the mighty wrecks that strew his path,
To sit and muse, like other cOnquerOrs,
Upon the farful ruin he has wrought.