Fair Register of names and dates!
With joy I see thee reappear,
And hail the columns which display
The records of another year:
For in thy brief, but various page,
What shelters of distress we find,
What schools, what brotherhoods devised,
To teach, and benefit mankind!
Yet sure that figured page is dark
To those the course of Time who trace,
And pause to ponder on the change
That marks, alas! his annual race.
The loved, or well known names assigned
To faithful tasks, one date before,
Erased for ever from the roll,
Now grace thy chronicle no more.
Wherere thy motley leaves we turn—
Wherere we search—wherere we gaze,
We learn in lesson sad and sure,
How brief's the journey of our days.