The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1895-12-29
THE CLOSING YEAR.


It's uli3night's holy hou--au5 silence now
Is breeding ike gentle Shirt Ger
12e SUI and pulseIess world Hark, on
the winds
The helrs deep tones are swelllng-'tis the
kneil
or the departed year. No funeral train
Is sweepsng past; YET, on the stream and
With melancholy light. the moon-beams
Like 3 pale. spo;less shroud: the air is
stirred
As by a nourner's sigh: ana on Won cloud
That aoats 80 still and plael8Iy through
The spirits Of the season seem to stand
Young spring, bright Summer. Autumn's
And Winter. with its aged lock-ana
In mouFnful cadences that come abroad
Like the fair wind-harp's Wild and touch
A melancholy dirge Ger the dead year.
Gone from the Earth forever.
For memory and for tears. Within the
Still chambers of the heart. a 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 loneliness
on the dead waste Of life That spec,er
lifts
And. bending mournfully above the pale.
Sweet forms, that siumher there. scatters
dead flowers
Der what has passed to nothingness.
The year
Has gone. and. with 1t. many glorious
or happy dreams. It's mark is on each
It's shadow in each heart. In its swift
course.
1t waved its scepter 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 eve is dim
IL trod the hall OF revelry, where thronged
The bright and joyous-and the fearful
wall
OF stricken ones is heard where erst tbs
And reckless shout resounded.
II passed Ger
The battle-plain, where sword. and spear,
Flashed in tho Hight of mid-day-and the
or serried hosts is shivered. and the grass.
Green from the soil Of carnage. waves
The crushed and mOldering skeleton. It
came,
And faded like a wreath of mist at eve;
IL heralded its millions 10 the home
II the dim land Of dreams.
Remo-seless Time!
Fierce spirit of the glass and scythe,-
what power
Can stay him in his silent course. or melt
His iron heart 10 pity? On. still on,
He presses, and forever. The proud bird,
The condor OF the Andes. that can soar
Through heavens unfathomable depths. or
Thu f,,rv ~ .na northern hurricane.
And battle his plumage in the thunders
home,
Furls his broad wings at nightfal and
To rest upon his mountain craig-but Time
Knows not the weight Of sleep or weari-
And nights deep darkness has no chain
TO bind
His rushing pinions.
Revolutions sweep
Ger earth, like troubled visions DER the
or dreaming sorrow-cities rise and sink
Like bubbles on the water-hery isles
Spring blazing from the ocean. and so
back
To their mysterious caverns-mountalns
To heaven their bald and blackened cliffs.
Their tail heads to the plain-new empires
Gathering the strength Of hoary centuries,
lanche,
Startling the nations-and the very stars,
Yon bright and burning blazonry OF God.
Glitter a while in their eternal depths,
And. like the Pieiad, lovelest of their
train.
Shoot from their glorious spheres, and
pass away
To darkie in the traclzless 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 the fearful ruin he has wrought
George u. Prentice.