 | Threescore, and other poems |  |
34
THE NEW YEAR.
What a tumult! how they pour,
Like a crowd through narrow door!—
Passions, plans, desires, and schemes,
Dogged purpose, wingéd dreams,
Hurrying into the New Year,
Flusht with hope or pale with fear.
And athwart the murmur's flow,
One above and one below,
Voices two are clearly heard:
Like the warbling of a bird,
One is full with joy and life,
Broken one with ghastly strife;
From the heaven within us one,
Hell is in the other's tone.
Heed the higher, hush the other,
Lest ye would the New Year smother;
For the new is fresh from God,
Pure as dew on morning sod.
Like a crowd through narrow door!—
Passions, plans, desires, and schemes,
Dogged purpose, wingéd dreams,
Hurrying into the New Year,
Flusht with hope or pale with fear.
And athwart the murmur's flow,
One above and one below,
Voices two are clearly heard:
Like the warbling of a bird,
One is full with joy and life,
Broken one with ghastly strife;
From the heaven within us one,
Hell is in the other's tone.
35
Lest ye would the New Year smother;
For the new is fresh from God,
Pure as dew on morning sod.
Bless the year with more and less:
Less of hate, more helpfulness;
Less of fraud and faithless fashion,
More of truth and noble passion;
More of love's sure thoughtfulness,
And of cross-eyed discord less;
More of aspiration's joy,
Less of groveling greed's alloy;
More of love and less of lust,
So to lift us o'er our dust.
Let the man control the beast,
That the year be one long feast:
Thus we win the great New Year,
And the right to crown his bier.
Less of hate, more helpfulness;
Less of fraud and faithless fashion,
More of truth and noble passion;
More of love's sure thoughtfulness,
And of cross-eyed discord less;
More of aspiration's joy,
Less of groveling greed's alloy;
More of love and less of lust,
So to lift us o'er our dust.
Let the man control the beast,
That the year be one long feast:
Thus we win the great New Year,
And the right to crown his bier.
| Threescore, and other poems | |