A Farewell To The Year
Hark, friends, it strikes: the year's last hour:
A solemn sound to hear:
Come, fill the cup, and let us pour Our blessing on the parting year.
The years that were, the dim, the gray, Receive this night, with choral hymn,
A sister shade as lost as they, And soon to be as gray and dim.
Fill high: she brought us both of weal and woe, And nearer lies the land to which we go.
On, on, in one unwearied round~ Old Time pursues his way:
Groves bud and blossom, and the ground Expects in peace her yellow prey:
The oak's broad leaf, the rose's bloom, Together fall, together lie;
And undistinguished in the tomb, Howe'er they lived, are all that die.
Gold, beauty, knightly sword, and royal crown,
To the same sleep go shorn and withered down.
How short the rapid months appear Since round this board we met
To welcome in the infant year, Whose star hath now for ever set!
Alas, as round this board I look, I think on more than I behold,
For glossy curls in gladness shook That night, that now are damp and cold.
For us no more those lovely eyes shall shine, Peace to her slumbers! drown your tears in wine.
Thank Heaven, no seer unblest am I, Before the time to tell,
When moons as brief once more go by, For whom this cup again shall swell.
The hoary mower strides apace, Nor crops alone the ripened ear;
And we may miss the merriest face Among us, 'gainst another year.
Whoe'er survive, be kind as we have been, And think of friends that sleep beneath the green.
Nay, droop not: being is not breath; 'Tis fate that friends must part,
But God will bless in life, in death, The noble soul, the gentle heart.
So deeds be just and words be true, We need not shrink from Nature's rule;
The tomb, so dark to mortal view, Is Heaven's own blessed vestibule;
And solemn, but not sad, this cup should flow,
Through nearer lies the land to which we go.
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