The Watertown weekly leader. [volume] (Watertown, Jefferson County, Wis.) 1912-1917, 1913-12-26

and the question comes up with spontaniety.
What of all this to me?"
In country so new as ours, where ones great
grandfather about the earliest on record,
time does not impress US. 1t seems as if every
thing began yesterday. In old lands whose his
tory goes back centuries upon centuries the prog
Of time seems very impressive.
But say what we will it is own life that is
the most impressive, and the years stretch out
behind US the memory of our own youth makes a
deeper impression this New Years day than
all the written history Of the world than all the
traditions of all the than all the records Of
the rocks. The individual souls days like this
naturally divide into two classes. On New Years
day youth looks to the future and age to the past
To the young all the paths before the feet look
rose-strewn and smooth. So be it. Let the eye
brighten it feasts in anticipation the good
things that must lie everywhere to the end Youth!
Youth The time when there can be mo doubt of
any mystery that lifes longngs and its
hopes could die" Let youth dream on of roses
without thorns, of bright days without cloud.
of hopes that always find fufment, Of ambitions
always fully satisfied. All We need do for youth is
leave it alone with its dreams, its hopes. it's
billions. With these it will take of itself. And
let not age whatever the years may have brought
say word, shake head give a dubious look
to dispel the glory of the dream, the brightness
of the hope, the vaulting nature Of the ambition
Time will do enough of this, So let youth have it's
undimmed joy today.
But age looks back The hreS of ambition are
dimmed They are all burntout ashes now. The
hopes that buoyed up safely in youth have
found what there is Of fufment all too little OF
disappointment all too much We dream longer
of joys to come, but Of grief that has strewed
the path along which we have come The smell
Of the woods in early spring when the first Violets
bloom, or i'll the heat of summer when all is like
the spice islands, or in fall when decay is in the
fallen leaves, or in winter when death absorbs
ALL no matter to the aged, all call back to days
long gone " walk alone now, and all along the
far road lie mounds where we stood and confided
to the breast of Mother Earth many that walk
ed with in the heydey of life The mother
whose soft touch banished pain, the father whose
ripe experience taught us where to walk, the
brothers and sisters who were our playmates in
those days when the world all sunshine
Then when the wing of love ceased to brood over
in the paternal nest and went forth to
create family under the banner of love how
a day like this calls up all the joy and tenderness
Of these days OF early manhood and womanhood.
So we dream Of the long-lost clasp Of the hand Of
lover friend; dwell in tender memory
ali those days Of hope, of Joy, OF expectancy
and fruitiOn. We feel that all will soon be over
This may be our last New Years day on this earth
where we have passed many eventful years
When those who are left again ring out the old
ring in the new may not be here to ring
either chime of bells. So we sit and dream and
call up from the treasnrehouse of memory the
us in the days of our youth and of our prime But
we would not he gone yet He is less than man
who thus can sit and dream, think of his de-
parture, and not cast one longing lingering look
behind We must go to the poets to interpret
this life to us. Not to the great of the world
but to those whose verse deals with the common
things OF life: TO Burns and his banks and braes
o bonnie Doom" his Highland Mary to the man
who wrote Home, Sweet Home to the poet OF
the poor slave in the south and his "Suwanee
River. We can go far back in the ages and all
the time the common heart of common humanity
was the now. King David would take
the aged Barzillai to the capital to the court
But the plain man of the people would be left
alone to dream the last dreams of life in peace
Let me go back that may die in mine own city
And after death 'be buried by the side of my ia
Their and of my mother Oh, the tenderness OF
old age! There are no fierce passions left. Am
blton builds no more castles in the air Just to
be let dream OF the days that are gone, of the
early home and all it contained, and then lie down
with the companions OF youth and for centuries
and centuries. throughout the great eternity let
our ashes mingle with those loved SO we'll