THE CLOSE OF THE YEAR.
31
Upon the still earth like a pall; the hills
And mountains stand like mourners; the tall trees,
Leafless ,red solemn, bend their tops like plumes
Above the bier; and lo! a countless throng
Of wan and ghastly phantoms seem to come
From the dim realm of shadows, to convey
The Old Year to his burial.
And mountains stand like mourners; the tall trees,
Leafless ,red solemn, bend their tops like plumes
Above the bier; and lo! a countless throng
Of wan and ghastly phantoms seem to come
From the dim realm of shadows, to convey
The Old Year to his burial.
He is gone!
He breathed no sigh or groan in his death-hour,
But with the awful stillness of a dream,
Passed to the mystic realm whine dwell the shades
Of years that passed before him. One more wave,
Bright with our smiles and bitter with our tears,
A wave that has reflected star and cloud,
The blue sky and the tempest's wrath, is lost
In the great ocean of Eternity,
Whose dark and dread and shoreless waters hide
The wrecks of empires and the wrecks of worlds
From every eye but God's.
He breathed no sigh or groan in his death-hour,
But with the awful stillness of a dream,
Passed to the mystic realm whine dwell the shades
Of years that passed before him. One more wave,
Bright with our smiles and bitter with our tears,
A wave that has reflected star and cloud,
The blue sky and the tempest's wrath, is lost
In the great ocean of Eternity,
Whose dark and dread and shoreless waters hide
The wrecks of empires and the wrecks of worlds
From every eye but God's.
