Horæ quidem cedunt, et dies, et menses, et anni: nec præteritum tempus unquam revertitur; nec, quid sequatur, sciri potest. CICERO. THE SPIRIT OF TIME. ANOTHER Year, methought a Spirit cried, Another Year is dead! Still rolls the world And beautiful his native heaven; the Earth Around, looks fresh as on her birth-day morn; And Man, as gay as if no knell had rung, No heart been broken, and no tears been shed!Where, then, the hist'ry of the buried Year, Of weal and woe, of glory and of shame? ETERNAL! not a minute fleets away That doth not waft a record to Thy throne: Time cannot die; the dim departed years Again will rise, and cited ages come A Year hath perish'd!—who can tell his tale? Her dead, or let the unfrequented graves There is no moral loud enough, and deep, To hush the laugh of Life, above the tomb; Time, accident, and change,-they melt forgot, Like clouds of feeling ;-not the dread alarm Of Nature can arouse the world to think.— There was an earthquake in a far-off isle ; The heavens were blacken'd, and the grim waves yell'd, While Ocean, heaving like a human breast agony, groan'd wildly from her depths! All earth seem'd fear-struck; on their bowing trees The leaves hung shudd'ring, through the heated air The dull wind mutter'd with a spirit-tone, And fitfully the island-cities rock'd! At midnight came the Earthquake in his ire And gloom, and made the world's foundation reel! Temples and domes were shatter'd; shrieks and prayers Rang in wild tumult through the rended skies, And crash'd to dust, a thousand corpses lay Gulph'd in the ground, and sepulchred by night! Cold morning came ;—a sadness cloak'd each brow: Yet none could dream of Judgment in their doom, And in the earthquake hear the voice of Heaven! A Year hath vanish'd,-and how many eyes Are film'd, how many lovely cheeks are cold! What lips, that let out music from the soul, Are death-seal'd now! Bend, human Pride! and see The desolation and the curse of Time: Monarch of millions! at whose royal feet The treasures of the ransack'd earth were laid, And on whose brow the pride of Ages sat, Where slumber'st thou ?-the sleep of death is thine, And worms will revel on thy ashy form As on the meanest of forgotten dust! What hast thou lost, unheedful World? Thy great |