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NEW YEAR'S EVE.
Mute, mute as death! There comes no messenger—
No shy low-lisping herald—no uncouth
Intrusive Sybil—no clear sudden change
And vivid contrast, such as breaks of hue
To wanderers floating from the blue Moselle
Into the differing waters of the Rhine—
There comes not aught, to teach the unthinking hours
How soon, how swift, they in another sphere
Are plunging,—where the breath of alter'd Time
Pants to new measures, and all works and ways
Of life move awkward, clothed with novel names,
And all the annual crowd of purposes
And hopes and high responsibilities
Are wrench'd from this, festoon'd and gather'd up
To a new centre.
No shy low-lisping herald—no uncouth
Intrusive Sybil—no clear sudden change
And vivid contrast, such as breaks of hue
To wanderers floating from the blue Moselle
Into the differing waters of the Rhine—
There comes not aught, to teach the unthinking hours
How soon, how swift, they in another sphere
Are plunging,—where the breath of alter'd Time
Pants to new measures, and all works and ways
Of life move awkward, clothed with novel names,
And all the annual crowd of purposes
And hopes and high responsibilities
Are wrench'd from this, festoon'd and gather'd up
To a new centre.
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Yet, tho' the dumb moon
And all still births of yon star-nourishing blue
Are clear above—things which do keep alive
The sense of silence in a noisy earth,
And tho' the utmost frontiers of the time
Exhausted are of sound,—the ringing heart
Takes so awry the impress of Repose,
So scantly grasps the thought of Rest, so far
Is exiled from the calm Eternity,
That this serenest vacant lull to her
Is populous with motion, and she deems
The virgin void of Night was only hush'd
To bring the tramp of years more close anigh
Her fever'd expectation, and to make
The snorting of the wayward teams of Change
More palpable and clear.
And all still births of yon star-nourishing blue
Are clear above—things which do keep alive
The sense of silence in a noisy earth,
And tho' the utmost frontiers of the time
Exhausted are of sound,—the ringing heart
Takes so awry the impress of Repose,
So scantly grasps the thought of Rest, so far
Is exiled from the calm Eternity,
That this serenest vacant lull to her
Is populous with motion, and she deems
The virgin void of Night was only hush'd
To bring the tramp of years more close anigh
Her fever'd expectation, and to make
The snorting of the wayward teams of Change
More palpable and clear.
Alas, that men
Will scoop the petty periods of this Life
Out of their native dust, and take them up
Within their mouths like pearls of eloquence,
And roll them thro' their solemn lips as tho'
They were great oracles and words of power
Most meet to be an heritage for us,
The sons of the Eternal!
Will scoop the petty periods of this Life
Out of their native dust, and take them up
Within their mouths like pearls of eloquence,
And roll them thro' their solemn lips as tho'
They were great oracles and words of power
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The sons of the Eternal!
O, 'tis false:
Hours, years, days, moments—they are but as chains
That prison like a fair Andromeda
The struggling naked soul, and bind her fast
Betwixt the stedfast bald obdurate rocks
And a vext surge, for ever.
Hours, years, days, moments—they are but as chains
That prison like a fair Andromeda
The struggling naked soul, and bind her fast
Betwixt the stedfast bald obdurate rocks
And a vext surge, for ever.
How unlike
THEE, which hast brought us thro' another year
Down the smooth paths of pleasantness and peace—
Our Father and our God! In that crude age
Of nameless hours, when first the suckling Time,
Shaken from the breast of great Eternity,
Totter'd alone,—when silent centuries
Stole trackless o'er the molten bubbling earth,
And skimm'd the ruddy surge a ‘cooling crust’
That hiss'd with vapours horrible,—Thou ART;
And now i' this dubious hour, that swerves and sways
Betwixt the battling currents of two years,—
Thou ART; and in the far grey formless dawn
Beyond the hills,—that grey which is to us
Only the utmost bandage and the rind
Which, being unwrapt, shall strip and sweetly bare
In turn the deepening colours of the morn—
A nest of hyacinths—till 'mid her own
Transparent hueless glow the Future stands
Awful in beauty,—not the less Thou ART:
But we ------!
THEE, which hast brought us thro' another year
Down the smooth paths of pleasantness and peace—
Our Father and our God! In that crude age
Of nameless hours, when first the suckling Time,
Shaken from the breast of great Eternity,
Totter'd alone,—when silent centuries
Stole trackless o'er the molten bubbling earth,
And skimm'd the ruddy surge a ‘cooling crust’
That hiss'd with vapours horrible,—Thou ART;
And now i' this dubious hour, that swerves and sways
Betwixt the battling currents of two years,—
Thou ART; and in the far grey formless dawn
Beyond the hills,—that grey which is to us
304
Which, being unwrapt, shall strip and sweetly bare
In turn the deepening colours of the morn—
A nest of hyacinths—till 'mid her own
Transparent hueless glow the Future stands
Awful in beauty,—not the less Thou ART:
But we ------!
Thou heard'st the clank of iron rings;
Look down as in a vision, and behold
Full many sherds of the fresh-fallen year
Sprent on the floor of Heaven. Therefore this
Is a new link of imperfection gone—
The chain whereby each spirit like a gem
Swings in the vast, whose topmost loops do cling
About the roots of Eden, with this hour
Contracts again: so, with each patient term
More buoyant thro' this atmosphere of Time
We rise toward the holy and the pure
Eternity, which is the Home of God.
Look down as in a vision, and behold
Full many sherds of the fresh-fallen year
Sprent on the floor of Heaven. Therefore this
Is a new link of imperfection gone—
The chain whereby each spirit like a gem
Swings in the vast, whose topmost loops do cling
About the roots of Eden, with this hour
Contracts again: so, with each patient term
More buoyant thro' this atmosphere of Time
We rise toward the holy and the pure
Eternity, which is the Home of God.
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