December 31, 1837.
html.skin-theme-clientpref-night @media(prefers-color-scheme:dark){html.skin-theme-clientpref-os }IME hurries on;
Years pass away like visions of the night—
Scarce seen to rise upon the raptured sight
Till all is gone.
Alas! in vain
We strive, with fevered grasp, to bid that stream
One moment pause; it passes like a dream,—
Ne'er felt again.
Yet who can gaze
Upon youth's glowing hours, scarce tinged with pain,
Nor sigh to think time ne'er can bring again
Those merry days?
What heart of man
Can hear unmoved the voice of other years,
And see departed hopes, forgotten fears,
Arise again?
Yet at this hour,
When we must bid a child of time farewell,
Such thoughts, such feelings, wake with deeper spell,
And tenfold power.
We stand once more
Beside the tomb where slumber ages past,
To watch another year rejoin at last
The gone before.
And as she dies,
O'er every heart the scenes her wing hath brought,
The weal, the woe, her brief career hath wrought,
Once more arise.
We live again
'Mid vanished shadows, voices far away,—
And all that chequered o'er her fleeting day
With joy or pain.
When thou arose,
Departing year, I little thought to me,
How changed in all my lot on earth should be,
Ere reached thy close!
For thou hast seen
Long-cherished hopes, time could not all destroy,
Beam forth again and end in purest joy,
In light serene.
Thy days, that flew
On fairy wings, have joined my earthly lot
To one—in absence, darkness, ne'er forgot—
Long loved and true.
Yes, time can ne'er
Efface thy bright remembrance. Can I, then,
Behold thee pass away and feel no pain,
Thrice blessèd year?
No! o'er the sky
Of life's meridian many a cloud may gloom,
But yet to me thy memory still must come,
Like light from high.
Would that my heart
Those countless mercies undeserved might raise
From earthly things, to choose through future days
The better part.
Oh! may the year
Which now begins her silent course to tread,
O'er all I love unnumbered blessings shed,
Or far or near.
And oh! may we,
Who now have watched her birth, as calmly stand,
With thankful hearts, a yet unbroken band,
To see her die.
E.