The White Pine news. [volume] (Treasure City, Nev.) 1868-1906, 1893-12-30
THE CLOSING YEAR.
BY GEORGE D. PRENTICE.

The following lines, written by
George D. Prentice many years ago,
are among the most beautiful in the
English language:
'Tis midnight's holy hour; and silence now
Is brooding like a gentle spirit DER
The still and puseless world, Hark! on the
winds
The BELLS deep tones are swelling; tbs the
knell
OF the departed year. No funeral train
Is sweeping past; yet on the stream and
wood,
With melancholy light the moonbeams rest,
Like a pale, sportless shroud; the air is
stirred
AS by mourner's sigh; and on yon cloud
That floats so still and placidly through
heaven,
The spirits of the season 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 harp's wild and touching
Vail,
A melancholy irge DER the dead year,
Gone from the earth forever
'Tis time
For memory and for tears. Within the deep.
Still chambers of the heart, d specter 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 specter lifts
The cof1in-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 II glorious
throug
OF happy dreams. It's mark is on each
brow,
It's shadows in each heart
In its swift course,
1t waved its scepter DER the beautiful;
And they are not. 1t laid its palid hand
Upon the strong man; and the naughty form
Is fallen, aud the flashing eye is dim.
1t trod the halls of the revelry, WHERE
thronged
The bright and joyous; and the fearful wall
OF stricken ones is heard, where erst the
And reckless shouts 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,
Greea 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 yiewless air,
1t heralded it's 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 unfathom able depths or
brave
The fury of the northern hurricane,
And bathe his plumage in the thunder's
home,
Furls his board wings at nightfall, and
sinks down
To rest upon his mountain crag; but Time
Knows not the weight of sleep or weariness;
And nights deep darkness has no chain to
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: fiery isles
Spring, blazing, from the ocean, and go back
To their mysterious caverns; mountains
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.
Yet Time,