Litchfield Enquirer

CLOSE OF THE YEAR.
The following lines upon the close of the year are
from the pen of Mr. Prentice. Let them be read, for
they are the burning thoughts which nought but the
poet's most sublimated fancy could conceive—in them
there is genius in its highest inspiration.
From the Louisville Journal.
'Tis midnight's holy hour—and silence now
Is brooding like a gentle spirit o'er
The still and pulseless world. Hark! on the winds
The bell's deep tones are swelling—' tis the knell
Of the departed year. No funeral train
Is sweeping past—yet, on yon stream and wood,
With melancholy light, the moonbeams rest
Like a pale, spotless shroud—the air is stirred
As by a mourner's sigh—and on yon cloud,
That 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 his aged locks, all breathe,
In mournful cadences that come abroad
Like the far wind-harp's wild and touching wail,
A melancholy dirge o'er the dead year
Gone from the Earth forever.
'Tis a 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 finger to the beautiful
And holy visions that have passed away.
And left no shadow of their loveliness
On the dead waste of life. That spectre lifts
The coffin lid of Hope, and Joy, and Love,
And, bending mournfully above the pale
Sweet forms that slumber there, scatters dead flowers
O'er what has passed to nothingness. The year
Has gone, and, with it, many a glorious thought
Of happy dreams. Its mark is on each brow—
Its shadow in each heart. In its swift course,
It waved its sceptre o'er the beautiful—
And they are not. It laid its pallid hand
Upon the strong man—and the haughty form
Is fallen, and the flashing eye is dim.
It trod the hall of revelry, where thronged
The bright and joyous—and the tearful wail
Of stricken ones is heard where erst the song
And reckless shout resounded. It passed o'er
The battle plain where sword and spear and shield
Flashed in the light of midday—and the strength
Of serried hosts is shivered, and the grass,
Green from the soil of carnage, waves above
The crushed and mouldering skeleton.
It came
And faded like a wreath of mist at eve.
Yet, ere it melted in the viewless air,
It heralded its millions to their home
In the dim land of dreams.
Remorseless Thing—
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 Heaven's unfathomable depths, or brave
The fury of the northern hurricane.
And bathe his plumage in the thunder's home,
Furls his broad wings at nightfall and sinks down
To rest upon his mountain crag—but Time
Knows not the weight of sleep or weariness,
And Night's deep darkness has no chain to bind
His rushing pinion. Revolutions sweep
O'er Earth, like troubled visions o'er the breast
Of dreaming Sorrow—Cities rise and sink
Like bubbles on the water—Fiery isles
Spring blazing from the Ocean, and go back
To their mysterious caverns—Mountains rear
To heaven their bald and blackened cliffs, and bow
Their tall heads to the plains—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 blazonry of God,
Glitter awhile in their eternal depth,
And, like the Pleiad, loveliest of the train,
Shoot from their glorious spheres and pass away,
To darkle in the trackless void—Yet Time,
Time the Tomb-builder, holds his fierce career,
Dark, stern, all-pitiless, and pauses not,
Amid the mighty wrecks that strew his path,
To sit and muse, like other conquerors,
Upon the fearful ruin he has wrought.
P.