Old Year Leaves Being Old Verses Revised: By H. T. Mackenzie Bell ... New Edition |
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| AFTER FIVE YEARS. |
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 | Old Year Leaves |  |
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AFTER FIVE YEARS.
After five years!
What changes will have come
Among the circle of our firmest friends!
Some will have gone to widely severed lands,—
While others—than whom none seemed closer bound
In silken chains of love—will then perchance,
Urged by some paltry source of petty feud,
Made greater by their pride, have ceased to meet
In harmony. And silent callous Death
Will certainly have stayed the mortal course
Of not a few, though friends we have not now
We shall know then.
What changes will have come
Among the circle of our firmest friends!
Some will have gone to widely severed lands,—
While others—than whom none seemed closer bound
In silken chains of love—will then perchance,
Urged by some paltry source of petty feud,
Made greater by their pride, have ceased to meet
In harmony. And silent callous Death
Will certainly have stayed the mortal course
Of not a few, though friends we have not now
We shall know then.
In circumstances also
What changes will have dawned! The man esteemed
Almost a pauper now may then have wealth
Unbounded,—he whose store of riches seems
Limitless now may be a beggar then.
He who enjoys the bliss of nerveless health
May then be broken down and weak of limb,
While he who now an invalid, though dowered
With youth, his ills all conquered, may be strong.
What alterations will have come to pass
What changes will have dawned! The man esteemed
Almost a pauper now may then have wealth
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Limitless now may be a beggar then.
He who enjoys the bliss of nerveless health
May then be broken down and weak of limb,
While he who now an invalid, though dowered
With youth, his ills all conquered, may be strong.
Throughout the world! Peace in the place of war
Or war in place of peace; and the appearance
Of present party strife in politics
Will then be altered quite,—while topics new
Will eagerly be canvassed. Many names
Novel to us will then have sprung to fame
In Life's inconstant whirl, while designations
Notorious now may even be then forgotten.
Yet there is one thing while the Earth remains
That will not change, and that one thing is—Change.
| Old Year Leaves | |