Deseret evening news. [volume] (Great Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1867-1920, 1906-12-31
THE CLOSING YEAR,


IT'S midnghts holy hour--and silence now
Is brooding, like gentle spirit, DER
The still aud pulseess world Hark! on the winds
The bells deep tones are sweing It's the knell
or the departed year. No funeral train
Is sweeping past; yet, the stream and wood
With melancholy light, the moonbeams rest
Like a pale Spouess shroud; the air Is stirred
As by a mourners sigh; and yon cloud,
That floats still and placidly through heaven.
The spirits of the stand
Young Spring, bright summer, Autumn's solemn form,
And Winter with his aged locks, aud breathe
In mournful cadcnces that abroad
Like the far windharp's wild and touching wall
melancholy drge DER the dead year.
Gone from the earth forever It's time
For memory and for tears Within the deep,
st chambers OF the hcnrt. specter dim,
Whose tunes 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 passd away,
And left no shadow of their loneliness
On the dead waste Of life That speecr lifts
The coifin-lid Of hope, and JOY and love,
And, bending mounfully above the pale
Sweet forms that siumber there, scatters dead flowers
Der what has passed to nohingncss. Tho year
Has gone, and, with IT, many glorious throng
or happy dreams Its mark Is on each brow,
It's shadow In each heart In Its swift course
IL waved its scepter DER the beautiful,
And they not. II laid It's palld hand
Upon the strong man, and the naughty form
Is fallen, and the flashing eye Is dim.
II trod the hall OF reyery, where tbrongd
The bright and joyous, and the fearful wall
OF stricken ones is heard where the song
And reckless shout resouDded II passed DER
The battle plain, where sword and spear and shield
Flashd In the light of midday--and the strength
OF SERTED hosts Is shyerd. and the grass
Green from the soil of carnage above
The crush'd and Wondering skeleton. 1t came
And faded like a wreath Of mist at cyci
Yet ere II melted in the yicwlcss air.
II heralded Its millions to their home
In the dim land of dreams. Rcnlorseless Time
Fierce spirit of the glass and scythc-what power
Can stay him in his silent course, 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 uniathomable depths or brave
The Tury OF the northern hurricane,
And battle his pumagc in the thunder's home.
FurIs his broad wings AT nghtfall, and sinks down
To rest upon the mountain crag-But Time
Knows the weight Of sleep WEAKNESS
Aud nights deep darkness has no chain to bind
Ills rushing pinion.. Re volutions sweep
Der earth, like troubled vision DER the breast
or dreaming sorrow; cities rise and sink
Like bubbles on the water; fiery isles
Spring blazing from the ocean, and go back
10 their mysterious caveDs: mountains
To heaven their bald and blackened cliffs, and bow
Their tall heads to the plain 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 blazonry of God,
Glitter awhile IN their eternal depths,
And like the Pleiades, loyeest of their train
Shoot from their glorious spheres, and pass
To sparkle in the rackless yoid--yet Time
Time the mb-bulder, holds his fierce career,
Dark sterii all pitiess, and pauses
Amid the mighty wrecks that his path,
To lit and muse. like other conqucrors
upop the fearful ruin he has wrought,
GEORGE d. PRENTlC