Classic Poem

The year is vanishing: I hear
The sound of flying feet,
As onward haste the rapid hours
The olden Past to greet.
What hast thou been to me, Old Year,
So swift receding now?
Answer, O Time! for thou hast placed
Thy wrinkles on my brow.

Thou hast taken away, O passing year!
The loved of long ago;
Thou hast left the lips that my love hath pressed.
In the casket lying low.
And the noble youth, our household pet,
Our brother young and brave,
Thou hast hid him, too, from our loving sight,
Far under the distant wave.

My fair young sister! the evening breeze,
Through the pine-trees sighing now,
Seems whispering “Mary.” O heart of mine!
Be still, and humbly bow;
For the dear God dealt with that sister fair
So tenderly the while,
That the tearful eyes which above her watched
Could upward look and smile.

Old Year, thou hast garnered, too, the sheaf
All ripe for the harvest-hour;
And the placid smile of my early guide
I shall see on earth no more.
My father's mother! she sits not now
In the place of silent prayer,
With her Quaker garb; but she worships still,
And I hope to meet her there,—

There, under the roof of the temple high,
No mortal hand hath reared,
Where the heart is free, and the worship pure,
And no soul by sin is marred.
Oh! there I may meet her, and read again,
As oft in the olden time,
Some word prophetic, or some high truth,
Soft-clothed in the music rhyme.

But I pause; for hark! the winds sigh low
And sad 'mid the pines to-night,
And I think of another dear saint who has gone
To walk with our Lord in white.
My pastor's wife, and my heart's choice friend:
Old Year! I saw her die
Ere thine autumn leaves had strewn the earth;
But her record was on high.

God knows how sad is this heart of mine
When I think of the loved ones gone!
God knows how sweet is the hope which cheers
My heart as my days pass on!
Old Year, farewell! there will dawn for me
A bright and a glad New Year,
When my loved and lost I again shall see,
And no more partings fear.