The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1900-12-09
CURRENT VERSE.
The CLOSING Year,

| IT'S midnight's holy hour-and silence now
| Is brood.pg like gentle spirit DER
| The still and puseless world Hark. on the wind,
| The bells deep tones sweling-'t is the knel
| Of the departed year No funeral train
| Is sweeping past yet, on the stream and wood,
With melancholy light, the moon beams rest
! Like pale, spot,ess shroud; the air is stirred
As Ivy mourner's sigh: and on yon cloud
That floats still and placidly through heaven,
The SPIRITS of the seasons seem to stand
Young Spring. bright summer, Autumn'S solemn
form,
And Winter with his aged locks-and breathe,
In mournful cIdences that come abroad
Like the far wind-barp's wild and touching wall,
\ melancholy dirge DER the dead year,
Gone from the Earth forever.
IT'S time
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
Heard from the tomb OF ages, points its cold
And solemn hnSer to the beautiful
And hc!y visions that have passed away,
And left no shadow of their loveliness
On the dead waste OF life. That spectre lifts
The cofiin-lid OF Hope. and JOY, and Love,
And, bending mouFDfully above the pale,
Sweet forms, that slun,ber there, seatters dead
Der what has passed to nothingness
Has gone and. with 1t, many glorious throng
OF happy dreams. Its mark is each brow,
Its shadow in each heart In its swift course,
1t waved its sceptre DER the beautiful
And they not. 1t laid its paliid hand
Upon the strong inan-and the naughty form
Is fallen, and the flashing eye is dim.
1t trod the hall OF reyelry, where thronged
The bright and joyous-lnd the fearful wall
OF stricken ones is heard where erst the song
And reckless shout resounded.
1t passed DER
The battle plain, where sword, and spear, and
shield
FLASHED in the light Of mid day-and the strength
OF serricd hosts is shivered, and the grass,
Green from the soil of carnage, waves above
The crushed and modering skeleton. 1t came,
And faded like a wreath OF mist at eve;
Yet, ere it melted in the viewless air,
II heraldcd its millions to their home
In the dim land OF Dreams
Fierce spirit Of tie glass and scythe!-what
Can stay him in his silent course. or melt
His iron heart to pity? On, still on
file presses, and forever The proud bird,
The condor OF the Andes, that can soar
Through heavens unfathomable depths, or brave
The fury of the northern hurricane,
And battle his piumage in the thunder's home,
Furls his broad wings at nightiall, and sinks down
To rest upon his mountain crag-but Time
Knows not the weight OF sleep WEAKNESS,
And nights deep darkness has chain to bind
His rushing pnions.
Revolutions sweep
Der earth, like troubled visions Ger the breast
OF dreaming sorrow; cities rise and sink
Like bubbles the water; fiery isles
Spring blazing from the ocean, and 20 back
10 their mysterious caverns; mountains rear
To heaven their bald and blackened cliffs, and
bow
Their tall heads 10 the plain; empires rise,
the strength of hoary centuries,
And rush down ike the Alpine avalanche,
Startling the Dstions-and the very stars,
Yon bright and burning blszonTy OF God,
Glitter while in their eternal depths,
And like the Pleiad, loveiiest of their train,
shoot from their glorious spheres, and pass away
70 darkle in the trackless void: yet Time
fine, the tomb-builier holds his fierce career,
Dark, stern. all-pitless, and pauses not
amid the mighty wrecks that strew his path,
TO sit and mise, like other conquerors,
Upon the fearful ruin he has wrought.
George D. Prentice.