A New Year.
Margaret E. Sangster.
Why do we greet thee, O blithe New Year!
What are thy pledges of mirth and cheer?
Comest, knight-errant, the wrong to right?
Comest to scatter our gloom with light?
Wherefore the thrill, the sparkle and shine,
In heart and eyes at a word of thine?
The old was buoyant, the old was true,
The old was brave when the old was new.
He crowned us often with grace and gift;
His sternest skies had a deep blue rift.
Straight and swift, when his hand unclasped,
With welcome and joyance thine we grasped.
O tell us, Year—we are fain to know—
What is thy charm that we hail thee so?
Dost promise much that is fair and sweet—
The wind’s low stir in the rippling wheat,
The waves’ soft plash on the sandy floor,
The bloom of roses from shore to shore,
Glance of wings from the bowery nest,
Music and perfume from east to west,
Frosts to glitter in jeweled rime,
Blush of sunrise at morning’s prime,
Stars above us their watch to keep,
And rain and dew, though we wake or sleep?
Once more a voice, and I hear it call
Like a bugle-note from a mountain wall;
The pines uplift it with mighty sound,
The billows bear it the green earth round;
A voice that rolls in a jubilant song,
A conqueror’s ring in its echo strong;
Through the ether clear, from the solemn sky
The New Year beckons, and makes reply:
“I bring you, friends, what the years have brought
Since ever men toiled, aspired, or thought—
Days for labor, and nights for rest;
And I bring you love, a heaven-born guest;
Space to work in, and work to do,
And faith in that which is pure and true.
Hold me in honor and greet me dear,
And sooth you’ll find me a Happy Year.”
Harper’s Bazar.