Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1898-12-31
AlexsnAris Qbaaettq.
SATURDAY EVENING, DEC. 81, l@ 6.
TCoMMUNIOATED
THE CLOSING YEAR.
By GEORGE D. PRENTICE.


By GEORGE D. PRENTICE.
lis miipight'e holy hour-and silence now
Is lrooding ike 8 gentle Spirit Ger
The sill ana pu!Soless world. Hank on thu
The bells deep tones are sweling-'tis the
O, the departed year. No funeral train
Is sweeping past-yet on the stream ant
wood,
With melancholy light the moonbesms rest
] ike a pale, spotiess shroud; the air is stir,
! 5 by mourner's sigh-snd On yon cloud,
That fosts so still aud placidly through
heaven,
The spirits of the Seasons seem to stand
Yourg Spring, bright sunHner, Autumn'S
solemn form,
And Winter with his aged locks, and breathe
In mourpful caGeGces that come abroad
Like the far wind .harp's wild and touthios
wsll.
Gone from the earth forever.
lis time
For memory and for tears. Within The dee y,
Still chambers of the heart spectre dim,
Whose tones were like the wizard voice of
Time,
Heard from the tomb of ges points its cold
AND solemn finger to the beautiful
And holy visions that hsve parsed away
And left no shadow OF their LONELINESS
On the dead waste of life. That spectre hits
The cofiin.l;d of Hope, and Joy, and Love;
And. beading mournfully above the pale
Sweet forms that slumber there, scatteIs dead
flowers
Ter what has passed to nothingness, The
year
Has gone. and with it, many glorious throns
OF happy dreams. Its mark is on each brow,
Its shadow in each heart. In its swift course,
1t waved its sceptre Ger the beautiful
And they are not. 1t laid its pallid hand
Upon the strong man-and the naughty form
Is fallen, sud the flashing eye is dim.
1t trod the hall of revelry, whore thlonged
The bright and jOyous-and the fearful wsii
OF stricken ones is heard, where erst the song
And reckless shout resouuded. 1t passed Ger
The battle-plain, where sword aud spear ano
shield
Flashed In the light of mid dsy-and the
strength
OF serried hosts is shivered. ana the grass
Green from the soil OF carnage waves above
The crushed and moulderlng skeleton. 1t
came
And faded like wreath of mist at eve;
Yet, ere it melted in the viewless sir,
1t heralded its mi lions 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 pity2 On, still on
He presses, and forever. The proud bird,
The condor of the Andes, that can soar
Through Heavens Questionable depths or
brave
The fury of the northern hurricane,
And bathe his plumage in the thnnder's
home,
Fnrls his broad wings at nightfall, and
To rest upon his mountain-crag-bu time
Knows not the weight of sleep or WEAKNESS
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 60 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 blszOnry 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 darkie in the trackess void yet time,
Time the tomb builder, holds bis fierce ca.
reer,
Dark stern, all pitiless and pauses not
Amid the mighty wrecks that strew his path,
To sit and muse, like other conquerers,
Upon the fearful ruin he has wrought.