REFLECTIONS ON THE CLOSE OF THE YEAR.[23]
The labor of another year has passed beyond our reach. We can alter nothing, and the past is of no use to us except as a lesson for the future. The soil that the plow ripped up, in the spring, has yielded its harvest, its work is closed, its fruits garnered. The tree whose boughs grew green when the singing of birds proclaimed that spring was come, has ripened its fruit, perfected its growth, its store is gathered, and its leaves are lying beneath it, and slowly returning to the earth from which they sprang. Only here and there, on a bright morning, do we see one of those birds which, a few months ago, builded their nest, watched their young, or taught the nestlings how to fly—young and old, with their grace of motion and sweet notes, are gone to a fairer clime. These changes one cannot help noticing; and no meditative mind can avoid many thoughts which flow out of them. Where are the harvests garnered which grew in the soil of the human heart? What thoughts and generous purposes have been ripened and stored up like fruit, and what ones have fallen and perished like leaves? Our vernal orchards never stood, within our remembrance, in such a glory of bloom; yet when the fruit should have set, most of the blossoms proved vain. And how many good purposes and fair resolutions have so perished within us! Have we, like the trees which we love and care for, made growth, of root and branch? Everything in nature has gradually assumed a preparation for winter. Those frosts and that ice which would have sent such mischief upon the leaves of summer, now lie, without harm, upon orchard and garden. Are we ripe and ready, too, for such a winter as adversity brings upon men?
[23] A.D. 1845.