THE CLOSING SCENE. THE CLOSING SCENE. WITHIN this sober realm of leafless trees, The russet year inhaled the dreamy air, The gray barns, looking from their hazy hills All sights were mellowed, and all sounds subdued, His winter log with many a muffled blow. Th' embattled forests,. erewhile armed in gold, On slumb'rous wings the vulture held his flight; And like a star slow drowning in the light, The village church-vane seemed to pale and faint. The sentinel cock upon the hill-side crew; Crew thrice, and all was stiller than before Silent till some replying wanderer blew His alien horn, and then was heard no more. Where erst the jay within the elm's tall crest Made garrulous trouble round her unfledged young; And where the oriole hung her swaying nest By every light wind like a censer swung; Where sang the noisy masons of the eves, An early harvest and a plenteous year; Where every bird which charmed the vernal feast All now was songless, empty, and forlorn. Alone, from out the stubble piped the quail, And croaked the crow through all the dreary gloom: Alone the pheasant, drumming in the vale, Made echo to the distant cottage loom. There was no bud, no bloom upon the bowers; The spiders wove their thin shrouds night by night; The thistle-down, the only ghost of flowers, Sailed slowly by-passed noiseless out of sight. Amid all this-in this most cheerless air, And where the woodbine shed upon the porch Its crimson leaves, as if the year stood there, Firing the floor with his inverted torch Amid all this, the centre of the scene, The white-haired matron, with monotonous tread Plied her swift wheel, and with her joyless mien Sat like a Fate, and watched the flying thread. THE CLOSING SCENE. She had known sorrow. He had walked with her, Oft supped, and broke the bitter ashen crust, And in the dead leaves still she heard the stir Of his black mantle trailing in the dust. While yet her cheek was bright with summer bloom, Re-gave the swords-but not the hand that drew, Long, but not loud, the droning wheel went on, Long, but not loud, the memory of the gone Breathed through her lips a sad and tremulous tune. At last the thread was snapped, her head was bowed: Life dropped the distaff through his hands serene ; And loving neighbours smoothed her careful shroud, While Death and Winter closed the autumn scene. BAYARD TAYLOR. KILIMANDJARO. HAIL to thee, monarch of African mountains, Who, from the heart of the tropical fervours, Feeding for ever the fountains that make thee Father of Nile and Creator of Egypt! The years of the world are engraved on thy forehead; Of man unbeholden, thou wert not till now. Floating alone, on the flood of thy making, KILIMANDJARO. I see thee, supreme in the midst of thy co-mates, Zone above zone, to thy shoulders of granite, And, giving each shelvy recess where they dally There, in the wondering air of the Tropics There stretches the Oak, from the loftiest ledges, His arms to the far-away lands of his brothers, Bathed in the tenderest purple of distance, Tinted and shadowed by pencils of air, Thy battlements hang o'er the slopes and the forests, Seats of the Gods in the limitless ether, Looming sublimely aloft and afar. Above them, like folds of imperial ermine, Sparkle the snow-fields that furrow thy forehead Desolate realms, inaccessible, silent, Chasms and caverns where Day is a stranger, Sovereign Mountain, thy brothers give welcome: |