285 THE CLOSING YEAR. 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, and 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 for ever. '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 And, bending mournfully above the pale Sweet forms that slumber there, scatters dead flowers Has gone, and, with it, many a glorious throng Of happy dreams. Its mark is on each brow, Its shadow in each heart. In its swift course, 286 THE CLOSING YEAR. And they are not. It laid its pallid hand It heralded its millions to their home In the dim land of dreams. 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 for ever. 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 THE CLOSING YEAR. To rest upon his mountain crag—but Time And Night's deep darkness has no chain to bind O'er Earth, like troubled visions o'er the breast And, like the Pleiad, loveliest of their train, To darkle in the trackless void-Yet Time, Amid the mighty wrecks that strew his path, Upon the fearful ruin he has wrought. 287 AMBITION. BY JOHN NEAL. I LOVED to hear the war-horn cry, And panted at the drum's deep roll; And held my breath, when-flaming high I saw our starry banners fly, As challenging the haughty sky, They went like battle o'er my soul: For I was so ambitious then, I burned to be the slave-of men. I stood and saw the morning light, AMBITION. Above the stars, above the fight Where nations warred for liberty; And thought I heard the battle-cry Of trumpets in the hollow sky. I sailed upon the dark-blue deep: And shouted to the eaglet soaring; To hear the gallant waters roaring; But, I am strangely altered now— I love no more the bugle's voice— The rushing wave-the plunging prow― The mountain with his clouded browThe thunder when his blue skies bow, And all the sons of God rejoice— I love to dream of tears and sighs Cc 289 |