The citizen-Republican. (Scotland, Bon Homme County, S.D.) 1???-19??, 1916-01-13
The CLOSING Year


Ills midnight's holy hour-and silence now
Is brooding like a gentle spirit DER
The still and pulseless world. Hark! on
the winds
The bells deep tones are swelling-'tis the
knell
Of the departed year. No funeral train
is sweeping past; yet, on the stream and
wood,
With melancholy light the moonbeams
rest
Like a pale, spotless shroud; the air is
AS by a mourner's sigh: and on yon cloud
Ihat floats so still and placidly through
heaven,
The spirits of the seasons seem to stand
Young Spring, bright Summer, Autumn's
solemn form,
And Winter with it's aged locks-and
In m%ournful cadences that come abroad
Like the far wind-harp's wild and touch
ing wall,
A melancholy dirge DER the dead year.
Gone from the earth forever.
TITS a time
tor memory and for tears. Within the
Still chambers of the heart, a specter dim.
whose tones are like the wizard voice of
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. Thai specter
lifts
The coefhn.lid of Hope, and Joy and Love.
Sweet forms, that slumber there. scatters
dead flowers
Ger hat has passed to nothingness.
The year
Has gone, and with it. many a glorious
throng
OF happy dreams. Its mark is on each
Its shadow in each heart. In its swift
course,
It waved its scepter DER the beautiful
Upon the strong mainland the naughty
form
Is fallen, and the flashing eye is dim.
wall
OF stricken ones, is heard where erst the
And reckless shout
It passed DER
Inc oattle,plain, where sword. and spear
Flashed in the light OF m~id-day-and the
strength
Green from the soil of carnage, waves
above
The crushed and moldering skeleton. 1t
came.
And faded like a wreath of mist at eve;
Yet, ere it melted in the viewless air.
1t heralded it's millions to their home
In the dim Ian OF dre.ms.
Remorseless Time,
Fierce spirit of the glass and scythe!-
what power
Can stay him in his silent course, or 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 unfathomable depths. or
The fury of the northern hurricane.
n battle his plumage in the thunder's
~ nome
Furls his broad wings at nightfall and
sinks down
Knows not the weight Of sleep or weari-
ness,
And nights deep arkness has no chain 20
His rushing pinions.
Revolutions sweep
Ger earth, like troubled visions DER the
OF dreamin sorrow-cities rise and sink
Like bubbles on the waterbury isles
Spring blazing from the ocean. and go
back
TO their mysterious caverns-mountains
rear
To heaven their bald and blackened cliffs.
Their tail heads to the plain-new empire,
Gathering the strength Of hoary CEN
And. rushing down like the Alpine ava.
lanche,
Startling the nations-and the very stars
gon bright and burning b~iazonry of God
Glitter a while in their eternal depths.
train,
Shoot from their glorious spheres, and
pass away
To darkle. In the trackless void-yet
Time,
The tomb builder, holds his fierce career
Dark, stern, all pitiless and pauses not
Amid the mighty waseks that streY Iii,
path
To sit and muse, like other conuuerors
Upon the fearful ruin he has wrought.
George d. Prentice.
Poverty Stricken.
From the Philadelphia Ledger.