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147
THE DEPARTED YEAR.
Silent and solemn pass the bannered hours,As to a chieftain's funeral.
With sad brow,
And arms reversed, they hush their muffled tread,
Waiting the last toll of the midnight clock,
Then lift him from his hearse and lay him down
In the dark grave with such a mournful dirge,
Mid the red torches' glare, that he who heard
Shall ne'er forget again.
Departed year!
Thou hast had fitting obsequy, as one
Worthy to be remembered; yet what hand
Can write thine epitaph?
Thou hast induced
Changes on this, our little, restless ball
Of dust and ashes, that grave History
Starts as she chronicles. They who could put
Their voice into men's souls and stir them up
148
Weak as the smitten babe.
New thrones have sprung
Forth from the seething ruins of the past,
With blood and fire around them.
O'er the floods
Men speed like winds, and o'er the earth like flames,
And launch their errands on the lightening's wing,
Making its shaft a spear-point, at their will
To pierce the dinted target where old Time
Notched his slow victories.
Thou hast achieved
Much ere thy course was run. But thou art gone
With buried ages to hold festival
In the dim, shadowy halls, where ghostly things
Wait the slow verdict of posterity.
Men, fallible, and girt with prejudice,
Pass sentence as they list; but as for us,
Whom on our journey to a land unknown
Thou didst set forward duly, night and day,
We shall have righteous judgment from high Heaven
Concerning all our intercourse with thee.
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