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Page 3
And now with the same greeting I commenced with, will I take my
leave--a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all, and may each
succeeding return find you progressing in all that can give you peace
and happiness, not only here but hereafter!
THE DYING HORSE.
Heaven! what enormous strength does death possess!
How muscular the giant's arm must be
To grasp that strong boned horse, and, spite of all
His furious efforts, fix him to the earth!
Yet, hold, he rises!--no--the struggle's vain;
His strength avails him not. Beneath the gripe
Of the remorseless monster, stretched at length
He lies with neck extended; head hard pressed
Upon the very turf where late he fed.
His writhing fibres speak his inward pain!
His smoking nostrils speak his inward fire!
Oh! how he glares! and hark! methinks I hear
His bubbling blood, which seems to burst the veins.
Amazement! Horror! What a desperate plunge,
See! where his ironed hoof has dashed a sod
With the velocity of lightning. Ah!--
He rises,--triumphs;--yes, the victory's his!
No--the wrestler Death again has thrown him
And--oh! with what a murdering dreadful fall!
Soft!--he is quiet. Yet whence came that groan,
Was't from his chest, or from the throat of death
Exulting in his conquest! I know not,
But if 'twas his, it surely was his last;
For see, he scarcely stirs! Soft! Does he breathe?
Ah no! he breathes no more. 'Tis very strange!
How still he's now! how fiery hot--how cold
How terrible! How lifeless! all within
A few brief moments!--My reason staggers!
Philosophy, thy poor enlightened dotard,
Who canst for every thing assign a cause,
Here take thy stand beside me, and explain
This hidden mystery. Bring with thee
The head strong Atheist; who laughs at heaven
And impiously ascribes events to chance,
To help to solve this wonderful enigma!
First, tell me, ye proud haughty reasoners,
Where the vast strength this creature late possessed
Has fled to? how the bright sparkling fire,
Which flashed but now from those dim rayless eyes
Has been extinguished? Oh--he's dead you say.
I know it well:--but how, and by what means?
Was it the arm of chance that struck him down,
In height of vigor, and in pride of strength,
To stiffen in the blast? Come, come, tell me:
Nay shake not thus the head's that are enriched
With eighty years of wisdom, gleaned from books,
From nights of study, and the magazines
Of knowledge, which your predecessors left.
What! not a word!--I ask you, once again,
How comes it that the wond'rous essence,
Which gave such vigour to these strong nerved limbs
Has leaped from its enclosure, and compelled
This noble workmanship of nature, thus
To sink Into a cold inactive clod?
Nay sneak not off thus cowardly--poor fools
Ye are as destitute of information
As is the lifeless subject of my thoughts!
The _subject of my thoughts_? Yes--there he lies
As free from life, as if he ne'er had lived.
Where are his friends and where his old acquaintance
Who borrowed from his strength, when in the yoke,
With weary pace the steep ascent they climbed?
Where are the gay companions of his prime,
Who with him ambled o'er the flowery turf,
And proudly snorting, passed the way worn hack,
With haughty brow; and, on his ragged coat
Looked with contemptuous scorn? Oh yonder see,
Carelessly basking in the mid-day sun
They lie, and heed him not;--little thinking
While there they triumph in the blaze of noon.
How soon the dread annihilating hour
Will come, and death seal up their eyes,
Like his, forever. Now moralizer
Retire! yet first proclaim this sacred truth;
_Chance_ rules not over Death; but, when a fly
Falls to the earth, 'tis _Heaven_ that gives the blow.
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