University of Virginia Library

When a year ends its mission, nature's harp
Is tuned, methinks, to notes of mournfulness—
The leafless wood is filled with dirge-like sounds,
Unheard at other times—and on the beach
Of lone blue lake, or ocean's wilder strand,
The waves send up a melancholy roar,
As if bereaved of something that they loved;
Snow, newly fallen, on the wintry waste,
Lifted in whirling masses by the gale,
Is shaped by fancy into ghostly forms
Treading the dance of death—and air-borne clouds
That brush the mountain's top, whose surging pines
Make music for the dark procession meet,
Seem like a funeral escort following
The Old Year to his grave.
Oh! not unmourned
By winged sprites, believe the fabling bards,
Though mortal tongue no lamentation raise,
Vanish the seasons with their varied charms—
Their flowers, their fruits, their many-colored groves,
And fireside joys, when howl the blasts of night.
Another wreck, with treasure in her hold,
Hath reached the port of dark eternity,
Furling her ragged canvas, nevermore
To brave the treacherous shoal, the hidden rock.
Her deck was crowded with a laughing throng
When merrily the voyage she began,
Flapping her white wing like some joyous gull
Disporting on the bosom of the brine.
Not all outlived the bark that bore them on—
Some perished when no cloud was in the sky,
And air was balmy with the breath of flowers—
And others, heart-chilled by unfriendly gales
That blew from Want's inhospitable coast,
Isles of complaining sorrow, dark with yew,
And over ice-fields, by Misfortune owned,
Lashed to the plunging plank, have disappeared.
Many are floating in a vessel launched
An hour agone to stem the tide of time,
Their tongues full loudly shouting, while she scuds
Before the breeze—“Health to the Outward Bound!”
On! on! though fair the weather be, or foul,
Thou restless rover on a troubled sea!
Ah! with a gallant bearing, like thine own,
The wreck, of which I spake, once walked the waves;
Exultant Hope was at the helm, and Joy
Her topmast with a painted streamer decked,
And now her cruise is o'er—her keel at rest.
The freight she bore, alas, was like thine own!
The golden visions of romantic youth;
Fancies of girlhood, delicate and sweet;
The growing selfishness of frosty age;
Love's cherished jewels, and majestic plans
Engendered by ambition's burning brain;

The coffin and the cradle, stowed away
In her deep hold, with toys and mourning weeds,
In the same varnish glittered side by side;
Pale winding-sheet, and bridal-garment, packed
In the same trunk together, were on board;
The myrtle and the cypress intertwined
In a strange wreath their foliage, and oft,
By tolling bell, the lover's lute was drowned.

On to thy sunless haven, fated bark!
Beauty, the waker of a wondrous spell,
Manhood, rejoicing in his lusty thews,
And childhood, warbling like a lark at morn,
Must perish by the way, but pause not thou!
Twelve moons will wax and wane before thy place
Of everlasting anchorage is found;
And in that space of time the world may wear
An aspect that it never knew before.
The bonds are snapping, one by one, that bind
The beaten slave unto a laboring oar:
The lifted veil unfolds a brighter scene
Than the dark back-ground of the mournful past;
Preluding notes of a triumphant song,
Rousing besotted nations, on the wind
Wander like spirits that will not be laid.
The human soul, a mirror darkened long
By passion's mist, and vapor black and dense
Uprising from the fens of ignorance,
Shall be unclouded as it was of yore,
Ere mildew fell on paradise—again
Its surface flashing back the light of heaven.
Old poets feigned that the revolving months
Were in obeyance to Biformis wise,
Who forward looked, and backward threw his glance.
Watch by Time's mighty outward gate he kept,
A janitor of grave and reverend mien!
Who aided, with his hand, the faltering steps
Of each out-going, palsy-shaken Year,
While in rushed blithe successors, with a bound.
Thereby unfolded was a startling truth;
For Life, and his wan, shadowy brother, Death,
Exit and entrance at one door-way find.
Outlasting generations of mankind,
The tallest Titan of the woods must fall,
And turn again to inorganic mould,
Retaining, though complete the ruin seems,
The rudiments of form and majesty,
And principle of efflorescence still.
Despair not, laborer for human weal!
Though perish, one by one, thy golden hopes;
Ashes remain in which some living spark
May veil its brightness, destined to illume
Cimmerian darkness with electric gleams.
Despair not, mourner, though the work of change
Is with the pale departed going on!
Despair not, dying maiden, while the leaves
Are paler growing in thy blighted rose!
The perishable flesh will waste to dust,
But through the portals of Decay will stream
A dazzling blaze of loveliness once more.
Transmuted by inevitable laws,
Loathsome putrescence will soon beauteous be,
The crumbling wreck become a fabric fair.