THE OLD EARTH.

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Old Mother Earth is wan and pale,
Her face is wrinkled sore;
Her locks are blanched, her heart is cold,
Her garments stiff with gore;
With furrowed brow and dim sad eyes,
With trembling steps and slow,
She marks the course that first she trod
Six thousand years ago!
The Earth is old, the Earth is cold,
She shivers and complains;
How many Winters fierce and chill
Have racked her limbs with pains!
Drear tempests, lightning, flood and flame
Have scarred her visage so,
That scarce we deem she shone so fair,
Six thousand years ago!
Yet comely was the youthful Earth,
And lightly tripped along
To music from a starry choir,
Whose sweet celestial song
Through Nature's temple echoed wild,
And soft as streamlets flow,
Where sister spheres replied with her,
Six thousand years ago!
And many happy children there
Upon her breast reclined,
The young Earth smiled with aspect fair,
The heavens were bright and kind;
The azure cope above her head
In love seemed bending low,
O happy was the youthful Earth,
Six thousand years ago!
Alas! those children of the Earth
With hate began to burn,
And Murder stained her beauteous robe,
And bade the young Earth mourn.
And ages, heavy ages, still
Have bowed with gathering woe
The form of her whose life was joy,
Six thousand years ago!
Old Earth! drear Earth! thy tender heart
Bewails thy chosen ones;
Thou look'st upon the myriad graves
That hide their gathered bones;
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For them, by day and night, thy tears
Unceasingly must flow;
Death chilled the fountain-head of life
Six thousand years ago!
Old Earth! old Earth! above thy head
The heavens are dark and chill,
The sun looks coldly on thee now,
The stars shine pale and still;
No more the heavenly symphonies
Through listening ether flow,
Which swelled upon creation's ear,
Six thousand years ago!
Weep not in bitter grief, O Earth!
Weep not in hopelessness!
From out the heavens “a still small voice”
Whispers returning peace.
Thy tears are precious in the sight
Of One who marks their flow,
Who purposes of mercy formed,
Six thousand years ago!
Thy days of grief are numbered all,
Their sum will soon be told:
The joy of youth, the smile of God,
Shall bless thee as of old;
Shall shed a purer, holier light
Upon thy peaceful brow,
Than beamed upon thy morning hour
Six thousand years ago!
Thy chosen ones shall live again,
A countless, tearless throng,
To wake creation's voice anew,
And swell the choral song.
Go, Earth! go wipe thy falling tears,
Forget thy heavy woe:
Hope died not with thy first-born sons,
Six thousand years ago!
The following philological law or canon of criticism is universally admitted, and all dictionaries, grammars, and translations, are formed in accordance with it:

“Every word not specially explained or defined in a particular sense, by any standard writer of any particular age and country, is to be taken and applied in the current or commonly received signification of that country and age in which the writer lived and wrote.”Campbell.

7.
This possession by demons is similar to the mode by which pretended spirits claim that they communicate through mediums. One of them, purporting to be the spirit of a departed son of Adin Ballou, in answer to the question, by his father, “Can you describe how you are able to write through a medium?” says, “I feel as though I enter into her for the time being, or as if my spirit entered into her. I am disencumbered of my spiritual form, and take hers. More than one spirit can enter the medium at once. The mediums all go into the trance by means of several spirits entering the body at one time.”Spiritual Telegraph, May 8, 1852.
8.
The word is demon or demons in all the instances referred to.
9.
Necromancy is derived from the Greek words nekros, dead, and mantis, a diviner. The Greek, Necromantia, is defined: “The revealing future events by communication with the dead; necromancy.” And Nekromantis: “One who reveals future events by communication with the dead; a necromancer.”
10.
This is in the Syriac, “Until the fulness of the time of all things.” IrenÆus says, “Till the time of the exhibition or disposal of all things;” and Œcumenius, “Till the time of all things does come to an end;” and we have the suffrage of Thesychius and Phavorinus, that “?p??at?stas?? is te?e??s??, ‘the consummation’ of a thing.”Whitby.

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