Time's pulse beats slower, and with muffled tread
The movements come and go,
Like some lone watcher bending o'er the dead
In silent, tearless woe. Time's wing half pauses in its onwward sweep
Across the vale of years,
As if to give hushed hearts a time to weep--
A time for prayers and tears. Silence has grown more silent; nature's pulse
Throbs with a noiseless beat;
As if some spectral army, hushed and mute,
Were on a long retreat. The trailing robe of darkness sweeps so low
It hides its fringe of light,
And the low wind hides in its heavy folds,
Seized with a strange affright. The past unlocks her halls, and from their shade
Comes forth the long gone by,
Like a bowed train of mourners darkly clad,
To watch the old year die.