Mournful I sit, for one by one
Time's golden sands are ebbing fast;
Whispering in low sepulchral tones,
The next, perchance, may be the last.
'Tis midnight's deep and solemn hour,
When visionary forms appear,
And shed their strange, mysterious power
O'er the departure of the year.
The charnel house is opened wide,
And thither's borne with brief adieu,
And slumbering eyes laid beside
Eighteen hundred fifty-two.
Now memory wakes her silent string,
And holds her umpire in the brain;
And brings as she alone can bring,
The image of the past again.
Her golden key, with using bright,
Unlocks the chambers of the soul,
And holds to reason's steady light
The secret records of her scroll.
Back, back she sails, down time's dark stream,
To childhood's bright and sunny hours;
And paints again her fairy dream,
Her sports, her fancies, and her flowers.
Touched by her wand, the sleeping dead
Spring up to active life again:
And in the busy pathway tread,
Mingling in our joy and pain.
She points where many a hope sprang bright,
And plum'd a while her pinions gay:
Then sank in disappointment's night,
And each fair promise died away.
And as I scan her records of the past,
And in succession all their deeds appear,
There's none o'er which so deep a shade is cast
As thine, thou just expiring year.
Thy spring was green, and bright, and gay,
And bloom'd as fair as Eden's bow'rs.
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