Telling their loves in music-and its streams
Leaping and shouting from the up-piled rocks
To make earth echo with the joy of waves.
3. And summer, with its dews and showers, has gone—
Its rainbows glowing on the distant cloud
Like Spirits of the Storm-its peaceful lakes
Smiling in their sweet sleep, as if their dreams
Were of the opening flowers, and budding trees,
And overhanging sky-and its bright mists
Resting upon the mountain tops, as crowns
Upon the heads of giants.
Autumn too
Has gone, with all its deeper glōries-gone
With its green hills like altars of the world
Lifting their rich fruit-offerings to their God-
Its cool winds straying mid the forest aisles
To wake their thousand wind-harps-its serene
And holy sunsets hanging o'er the west
Like banners from the battlements of Heaven-
And its still evenings, when the moonlit sea
Was ever throbbing, like the living heart
Of the great Universe. Ay-these are now
But sounds and visions of the past-their deep,
Wild beauty has departed from the earth;
And they are gathered to the embrace of Death,
Their solemn herald to Eternity.
5. Nor have they gone alone. High human hearts
Of passion have gone with them. The fresh dust
Is chill on many a breast, that burned erewhile
With fires that seemed immortal. Joys, that leaped
Like angels from the heart, and wandered free
In life's young morn to look upon the flowers,
The poetry of nature, and to list
The woven sounds of breeze, and bird, and stream, Upon the night air, have been stricken down
That roved forever on the buoyant winds
Like the bright, starry bird of Paradise,
And chanted to the ever-listening heart
In the wild music of a thousand tongues,
Or soared into the open sky, until
Night's burning gems seemed jeweled on her brow,
Has shut her drooping wing, and made her home
Within the voiceless sepulchre.
That knelt at Passion's holiëst shrine, and gazed
On his heart's idol as on some sweet star,
Whose purity and distance make it dear,
And dreamed of ecstasies, until his soul
Seemed but a lyre, that wakened in the glance
Of the beloved one-he too has gone
To his eternal resting-place.
Is stern Ambition-he who madly grasped
At Glory's fleeting phantom-he who sought
His fame upon the battle-field, and longed
To make his throne a pyramid of bones
Amid a sea of blood? He too has gone!
His stormy voice is mute-his mighty arm
Is nervelèss on its clod-his věry name
Is but a meteor of the night of years
Whose gleams flashed out a moment o'er the earth
And faded into nothingnèss.
Of high devotion-beauty's bright array—
And life's deep idol memories-all have passed
Like the cloud-shadows on a starlight stream,
Or a soft strain of music, when the winds
Are slumbering on the billow.
184. THE FLIGHT OF YEARS.
Upon the past with sorrow? Though the Has gone to blend with the mysterious tide
Of old Eternity, and borne along
Upon its heaving breast a thousand wrecks
Of glory and of beauty-yet, why mourn
That such is destiny?
Succeedèth to the past-in their bright round
The seasons come and go-the same blue arch,
That hath hung o'er us, will hang o'er us yet-
The same pure stars that we have loved to watch,
Will blossom still at twilight's gentle hour,
Like lilies on the tomb of day—and still
Man will remain, to dream as he hath dreamed,
And mark the air with passion.
Love will spring
From the lone tomb of old Affections-Hope,
And Joy, and great Ambition will rise up
As they have risen-and their deeds will be
Brighter than those engraven on the scroll
Of parted centuries. Even now the sea
Of coming years, beneath whose mighty waves
Life's great events are heaving into birth,
Is tossing to and fro, as if the winds
Of heaven were prisoned in its squndlèss depths,
And struggling to be free.
Weep not, that Time
Is passing on-it will ere lõng reveal
A brighter era to the nations. Hark!
Along the vales and mountains of the earth
There is a deep, portentous murmuring,
Like the swift rush of subterranean' streams
Or like the mingled sounds of earth and air,
When the fierce Tempèst, with sonorous wing,
Heaves his deep folds upon the rushing winds,
And hurries onward with his night of clouds
Against the eternal mountains.
Of infant Freedom-and her stirring call
1 Sub`ter rā′ne an, being or lying under the surface of the earth; situated within the earth, or under ground.
Is heard and answered in a thousand tones,
From every hill-top of her western home-
And lo! it breaks across old Ocean's flood—
And "Freedom! FREEDOM!" is the answering shout
Of nations starting from the spell of years.
6. The day-spring!-see!-'tis brightening in the heavens!
The watchmen of the night have caught the sign-
From tower to tower the signal-fires flash free-
And the deep watch-word, like the rush of seas
That heralds the volcano's bursting flame,
Is sounding o'er the earth.
Bright years of hope
And life are on the wing!-Yon glorious bōw
Of freedom, bended by the hand of God,
Is spanning' Time's dark surges. Its high Arch,
A type of Love and Mercy on the cloud,
Tells, that the many storms of human life
Will pass in silence, and the sinking waves,
Gathering the forms of glory and of peace,
Reflect the undimmed brightness of the Heavens.
GEORGE D. PRENTICE.
185. RING OUT, WILD BELLS.
ING out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night:
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
2. Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going-let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
3. Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.
Spǎnning, measuring or reaching from one side to the other.
2 Surges, (sårj' ez), rising billows; great rolling waves.
4. Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife,
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
5. Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.
6. Ring out false pride in place and blood, The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
7. Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
8. Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindliër hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
186. DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR.
ULL knee-deep lies the winter-snow,
And the winter-winds are wearily sighing :
Tōll ye the church-bell, sad and slow,
And tread softly and speak low;
For the old year lies a-dying.
Old year, you must not die;
You came to us so readily,
You lived with us so steadily,
Old
year, you shall not die.
2. He liëth still: he doth not move :
He will not see the dawn of day :
He hath no other life above.
He gave me a friend and a true, true love,
And the new year will take them away.
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