YEAR.
When a few years are come, then I shall go the way whence I shall not return.—Job, xvi. 22.
Thou crownest the year with thy goodness, thy paths drop fatness.—Psalm lxv. 11.
For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.
For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told.
The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.—Psalm xc. 4, 9, 10.
If a man live many years and rejoice in them all; yet let him remember the days of darkness for they shall be many.—Ecclesiastes, xi. 8.
Another year of time has passed away,
And long eternity is drawing near:
Another year—perhaps another day,
And man and all his works, may disappear,
Time’s but a courser, and his fleet career
May end before he reach another round;
Or, should he chance to run another year,
He lays a thousand dead at every bound!
Why longer trust to future years in store?
Why hang our hopes upon a spider’s thread?
Begin the work of life, and, sleep no more,
A flower late planted ne’er may raise its head;
Or choked by weeds neglected in the soil,
May never, never bloom, nor shed a cheerful smile.
Peter Still.
Eternal source of every joy,
Well may Thy praise our lips employ,
While in Thy temple we appear
To hail Thee sovereign of the year.
Wide as the wheels of nature roll
Thy hand supports and guides the whole!
The sun is taught by Thee to rise,
And darkness when to veil the skies.
The flowery spring at Thy command,
Perfumes the air and paints the land;
The summer rays with vigour shine
To raise the corn and cheer the vine.
Thy hand, in Autumn, richly pours
Through all our coasts redundant stores;
And winters softened by thy care,
No more the face of horror wear.
Seasons, and months, and weeks, and days,
Demand successive songs of praise;
And be the grateful homage paid,
With morning light and evening shade.
Here in thy house let incense rise,
And circling sabbaths bless our eyes,
Till to those lofty heights we soar,
Where days and years revolve no more.
Doddridge.
The middle watch is past! Another year
Dawns on the human race with hope and fear.
The last has gone, with mingl’d sigh and song,
To join for ever its ancestral throng;
And Time reveals,
As past it steals,
The potent hand of God, the Everlasting,
Guiding the Sun, with all his blazing peers,
And filling up the measure of our years,
Until Messiah, Prince, to judgment hasting,
Shall roll the darkness from this world of sin,
And bid a bright eternity begin.
The years fly faster than they did whilom—
With greater speed they go, with greater come,
Has time renewed its youth? or fearing age,
Perspiring, pants it to fulfil its stage?
Perhaps men’s fears,
And falling tears,
Oiling its wheels has caused this rapid rolling;
Or, urged along by old Creation’s groans,
And sympathizing with its piteous moans,
It flies to set their massive death-bell tolling;
When blooming Paradise shall clothe the earth,
And angels shout to heaven its second birth.
All years are like, yet no one like another;
Sons of one sire, yet no one like his brother;
All use one language, yet the tales they tell
Speak now of earth, anon of heaven and hell.
They all are sent,
With kind intent,
The messengers of God, the loving Father,
To tell his weeping children, that his eye
Watches their sorrows from his world on high,
Where, near himself, he means them all to gather;
Yet when they reach this cloud-environ’d globe,
These messengers assume a sable robe.
On then, ye years! accelerate your flight;
Ye’ll sooner cross the realm of murky night,
On, on, unresting! till your pinions, riven,
Drop down exhausted in the vault of heaven!
And thou, O Time,
The sage sublime,
Nobly obedient to the King Eternal,
Shalt lay thy silver’d head to peaceful rest,
Close by the mansions of the ransom’d blest,
Who on thy breast were borne to joys supernal.
Then shall the memory of thy faithful flight
Be set to music in the realms of light!
W. Leask.
Awake, ye saints, and raise your eyes,
And raise your voices high:
Awake, and praise that sov’reign love,
That shows salvation nigh!
On all the wings of time it flies;
Each moment brings it near;
Then welcome each declining day!
Welcome each closing year.
Doddridge.
Old time has turn’d another page
Of eternity and truth;
He reads with a warning voice to age,
And whispers a lesson to youth.
A year has fled o’er heart and head
Since last the yule-log burnt;
And we have a task to closely ask,
What the bosom and brain have learnt?
Oh! let us hope that our souls have run
With wisdom’s precious grains;
Oh! may we find that our hands have done
Some work of glorious pains.
Then a welcome and cheer to the merry new year,
While the holly gleams above us;
With a pardon for the foes who hate,
And a prayer for those who love us.
We may have seen some loved ones pass
To the land of hallow’d rest;
We may miss the glow of an honest brow
And the warmth of a friendly breast:
But if we nursed them while on earth,
With hearts all true and kind,
Will their spirits blame the sinless mirth
Of those true hearts left behind?
No no! it were not well or wise
To mourn with endless pain;
There’s a better world beyond the skies,
Where the good shall meet again.
Then a welcome and cheer to the merry new year,
While the holly gleams above us;
With a pardon for the foes who hate,
And a prayer for those who love us.
Have our days rolled on serenely free
From sorrow’s dim alloy?
Do we still possess the gifts that bless
And fill our souls with joy?
Are the creatures dear still clinging near?
Do we hear loved voices come?
Do we gaze on eyes whose glances shed
A halo round our home?
Oh, if we do, let thanks be pour’d
To Him who hath spared and given,
And forget not o’er the festive board
The mercies held from heaven.
Then a welcome and cheer to the merry new year,
While the holly gleams above us;
With a pardon for the foes who hate,
And a prayer for those who love us.
Eliza Cook.