APOSTROPHE TO TIME.
Grave of the mighty past!
Ocean of time! whose surges breaking high,
Wash the dim shores of old Eternity,
Year after year has cast
Spoils of uncounted value unto thee,
And yet thou rollest on, unheeding, wild and free.
Within thy caverns wide,
The charnel-house of ages! gathered lie
Nations and empires, flung by destiny
Beneath thy flowing tide:
There rest alike the monarch and the slave;
There is no galling chain, no crown beneath thy wave.
The conqueror in his pride
Smiled a defiance, and the warrior stood
Firm as the rock that bides the raging flood;
The poet turned aside
And flung upon thy breast the wreath of Fame,
And thou hast swept away perchance his very name!
The craven and the brave,
The smile of blooming youth, and grey-haired age,
The ragged peasant and the learned sage,
Have found in thee a grave:
The vanquished land and despot on his ear,
Went down beneath thy wave, as falls the glancing star.
Thou hast the soaring thought,
The lofty visions of the daring soul;
The piercing eye, that bade the darkness roll
From Nature’s laws, and sought
For years to trace her mysteries divine:
Oh! who shall count the gems that glitter on thy shrine?
Yet more is thine, proud sea!
Thou hast the mighty spoils of human wo,
The bright hopes crushed, the dark and bitter flow
Of grief and agony;
Thou hast the burning tears of wild despair,
Thou the wrung spirit’s cry, the broken heart’s strong prayer.
Thou hast the deathless love,
That smiled upon the storm and warred with life,
And looked serene, unscathed by earthly strife,
To realms of light above:
Thy priceless gems! oh! dost thou treasure these,
The jewels of the heart, within thy trackless seas?
When the loud voice of God
Shall shake the earth, and like a gathered scroll
At His command the boundless skies shall roll;
When from the grassy sod
The living soul shall start to life sublime,
Wilt thou not render back thy spoils, insatiate Time?
M. G.