The New Year.
When the gloomy shades of midnight
Have enveloped all the earth,
I sit watching at the window
For the coming New Year’s birth,
And I seem to see in fancy,
Through the shadows of the night,
Hosts of angel forms advancing,
O so fair and wondrous bright.
Well I know those radiant beings
Are not of an earthly clime—
In their midst a grim old figure,
Gaunt and gray, old Father Time;
In his arms he bears a burden—
’Tis an infant, young and fair,
Rounded limbs and baby dimples,
Laughing eyes and shining hair.
Onward comes the bright procession,
Singing songs of happy cheer,
And I know the smiling infant
Is the blithe and bright New Year.
Now they pause before my window
And the New Year laughs with glee,
Holding both hands clasped tightly
O’er the gifts I may not see.
And he whispers: “O sad mortal!
Bid thy sorrows all depart,
I have come with fairest blessings
And would cheer thy saddened heart.”
And I whisper: “Tell me, New Year,
What thou hast in store for me?”
But he clasps his hand still closer
O’er the gifts I may not see.
And he speaks in solemn sadness
“Mortal, would’st thou look ahead,
Would’st thou draw aside the curtain
From the paths that thou must tread?
Never yet were seen by mortals,
Paths as yet by them untrod,
Seek not then to read the future,
Leave it all to time and God.”
Then with footsteps fleet and noiseless,
Speed the shining throng away
And once more alone I’m sitting
In the darkness, cold and gray.
“Ah! The New Year’s right,” I murmur,
“It is best I should not know,
So to God I leave the future
Be it weal or be it woe.”