What the Old Year Said

Twelve .months ago, with anthems gratulant, 
Men hailed my coming; and the chime of bells, 
The billowy roll of organs, and the songs 
Of happy children, rained on me and mine 
Delicious benedictions. Now, they wait 
Impatient for the hour that strikes my knell, 
And heralds my successor. Well-a-day! 
So waited they for me, and so in turn 
For each New Year shall wait, till Earth, grown old, 
Reels to her grave, and Time shall be no more! 
Yet, not regretful that my work is done, 
From my last foothold on the crumbling hours
I look, calm-eyed, over the vastitude 
Of that great deep ye name Eternity, 
And wait the moment that shall call me hence, 
To years that told the earliest age of Time, 
When earth stood close to heaven, and angels walked 
Over its shining hills, and talked with men; 
To years that saw the fratricidal blow 
That gave the ground, since soaked through all its pores
With that red wine, its primal stain of blood; 
To years made holy by the breath of Christ, 
What time He taught and fed the multitudes 
Among the hills that gird Jerusalem; 
To the vast congregation of the years 
Which rule the misty empire of the past: 
I go to join their grand fraternity.

I have seen enough of human misery,
Of want, oppression, shame, remorse, and woe;
Of toil, and waste, and iron-throated war;
Of weakness trampled by unholy power;
Of right downtrodden 'neath the heel of wrong;
Of tears, and laughter sadder far than tears ;
Of hopes too surely dark'ning to despair,
And all that veils from man the sunlit heavens,
And makes of earth one red Aceldama!

Yet Truth still lives — and so shall dawn for man
A better day ! Yet Freedom battles still
With tyrannous Wrong — and so shall dawn for man
A better day! Yet God is over all, 
From discords shaping harmonies divine, 
Making all things subservient to His will — 
And so shall dawn for man a better day! 
A day when Love and Peace shall reign supreme, 
And Knowledge clasp the hand of Liberty;
A day when Virtue shall in every heart
Find a pure home, and fill it with the light
And warmth of heaven. Then War shall stride no more
With clanging arms and garments rolled in blood, 
O'er lands that groan beneath his murderous sway;
But the far continents be joined in one 
By solemn sacrament, whose ritual, 
Flashed through the sunless depths, is "GLORY TO GOD
IN THE HIGHEST! PEACE ON EARTH! GOOD WILL TO MEN!”
Thrice blessed is he whose prescient soul can grasp
Ere yet it dawns, the splendors of that day, 
And 'mid the present dark still walk in light, 
The visiting of the dayspring from on high!

Such have I seen — the Abdiels of the race, 
“Faithful among the faithless" — hopeful still 
Because believing, and believing still 
Haply because they stand so near to God! 
Though wrong prevail, they fearless plead for right; 
Though lies buy favor, dare speak only truth; 
Though tyrants rule, are leal to liberty! 
When weak souls faint, they toil serenely on; 
When traitors turn, they know no compromise; 
When cowards fail, they press to victory! 
He strikes not vainly who, howe'er beset,
Strikes for sheer justice! Patience, then, ye few
Who wage unwearied war with sceptered wrong,
Nor truce nor parley hold with tyranny;
For, though the hour that brings you full successWait, and disaster gloom above your way,
Yet, as the truth is greater than all lies,
And right immortal and akin to God,
And God more potent than the hosts of hell,
That hour, so long delayed, shall come, and place
On your scarred brows the crown of victory!

In cold, bare attics, and in cellars damp,
Where the frost pinches and the hunger gnaws,
And sickness saps the strength from day to day,
And hope is not, I have seen heroisms
Grand as were ever traced on history's page,
Or flushed with life the canvas: famished men,
Women, and children battling with the fiend
That whispers, "Wherefore suffer, when the hire
Of sin swells goldenly before your eyes?
Seize the rich prize ! Be rich, be strong, and live—
For virtue brings you sorrow, famine, death!" 
And they, unhelped in their extremity, 
Kept their souls white, and bade the fiend begone, 
And said, "To die is better than to drive 
God's angels from our souls, so evermore 
Left dark and cold ; 'tis better far to die!”

And I have seen the good Samaritans —
Women and men — who do kind deeds by stealth,
And ask no eye but God's to scan their work,
Seeking the famished with supplies of food;
Seeking the sick with broths and medicines;
Seeking the hopeless with sweet prophecies
Of the new dawn that waits behind the cloud;
Seeking the broken-hearted with such words
Of tender sympathy as balm their wounds,
And open vistas to the calm of heaven;
Seeking the sinful with divinest love,
That through guilt's grime still sees a deathless soul,
And, with large pity, and as large a hope, 
Strives to redeem and bring it back to God !

O, this old earth — so scarred by violence;
So drenched by the purple vintage of the sword;
So full of sorrows, and despairs, and deaths;
So foul with wrong, and dark with unbelief —
Not yet is alien from her paradise
While blest with ministering spirits such as these ;
Not yet hath all forgot the heavenly light
That gleamed above her hills when " Very good J '"
Surveying His finished work, the Master said. "