From the threshold of life on the bright pathway that stretches afar to the infinite,
Youth yearns for the strife, as a child for play, and his dreamings are of a well-won height.
As at dawn of day when the Morning Star unbinds the zone of the virgin Light,
We watch, all breathless, for beauty deathless, so heaven’s beyond us, yet seems in sight.

And then, ah, then, as the years go by, and hope grows weary with waiting long,
When trust in men we must fain deny, the miserere replaces song.
Like slaves that ply in the galley’s den the laboring oar, through sin and wrong,
The soul plods on, and heaven is gone; we can but suffer and yet be strong.

When the snows of age fall thick and fast, and passion has faded like flowers that grow,
The memory sage dreams dreams of the past and all that has made it have joys below.
When the friends long laid in the grave, at last, stand beckoning us in the twilight glow,
And wrongs endured prove that which cured, the heaven behind us too late we know.

The heaven of man is never here; it always is where his treasures are.
To-day’s brief span arches little dear; the stream of bliss seems wider afar.
From this to this the path is drear; there’s always something each joy to mar,
Till the past that is real becomes ideal under the gold of life’s twilight star.

NEW YEAR’S EVE.
Air—Belle Mahone.

Hark! the tolling of the bells.
How it sinks and how it swells!
O’er the sleeping town it knells,
“Fare thee well, Old Year.”
Far across the snowy plain
Rolls the many-tongued refrain,
And the echoes cry again,
“Fare thee well, Old Year.”

Thou hast been a kindly year,
Thou hast spared us many a tear,
Thou hast vanquished many a fear,
Fare thee well, Old Year.
Lightly touched by summer showers,
Budding hopes have grown to flowers,
Happy days have flown like hours,
Fare thee well, Old Year.

Many a lesson thou hast taught,
Precious favors thou hast brought,
Pleasant changes thou hast wrought,
Fare thee well, Old Year.

Now thy rule is near an end,
Thy last records have been penned,
We must part at last, true friend.
Fare thee well, Old Year.