The Past Year

THE PAST YEAR. It was but yesterday the snow Of thy dead sire was on the hill; It was but yesterday the flow Of thy spring showers increased the rill, And made a thousand blossoms swell To welcome summer's festival; It was but yesterday I saw Thy harvests wave their golden treasures, And man, to Nature's genial law Responsive, taste the season's pleasures; • And now all these are of the past, For this lone hour must be thy last! Thou must depart! where, none may know — The sun for thee hath ever set; The star of morn, the silver bow No more shall gem thy coronet And give thee glory; but the sky Shall shine on thy posterity. Bright as it ever shone on thee; While as a torrent they are pouring On where forgetfulness will be In ambush couched for their devouring. Where now it waits thy latest sand From destiny's unpitying hand. In darkness—in eternal space, Sightless as a sin-quenched star. Thou Shalt pursue thy wandering race, Receding into regions far; On thee the eyes of mortal men Shall never, never light again. Memory alone may steal a glance. Like some wild glimpse in sleep we're taking,

Of a long perished countenance We have forgotten when awaking — Sad, evanescent, color'd weak, As beauty on a dying cheek. Whence flow the streams of ages? Where Pass the perished things its surface bears — The breathing life, the joy and care, The good and evil of earth's years? And were they made with thee to die — Created—who can tell us why? — As dewy flowers that bloom today, Hallowing the summer air with sweetness, Extinguished ere tomorrow's ray. Leave but memorials of death's fleetness? Man alone hopes in distant skies To bloom mid some bright paradise. I once had many pleasant gleams Of thy prospective hours, and things That turn'd out but delusive dreams, Fading beneath thy restless wings; And many unreckoned gift of thine, I never thought could have been mine; And many joys, and many pains, At this thy dying hour departed. And hopes I dare not count as gains. And fears which made me coward-hearted. That soon must be as they were not — I, thou, and they, alike forgot! Farewell! that cold regretful word To one whom we have called a friend— • Yet still "farewell!" I must record The sign that marks our friendship's end, Thou'rt on thy couch of wither'd leaves, The surly blast thy breath receives; In the stripped woods, I hear thy dirge, Thy passing-bell the hinds are tolling. Thy death-song sounds in ocean's surge, Oblivion's clouds are round thee rolling — Thou'lt buried be where buried lie Years of the dead Eternity! Anon.