We hailed thy white-robed natal hour,
Rejoiced in dawning Spring; Now Autumn fruit, and Summer flower
Have passed, and sad we sing

Thy requiem. Oh vanished year!
Thy deeds of shame and wrong, Thy widows' cry, thy orphans' tear
Well nigh untune my song.

Thine was the fraud, the private cheat,
The mean in purse and thought; Leal worshippers at Mammon's feet,
Who sold their Heaven for nought.

Thine were those souls that slander hatch,
That tortuous tangles spin; Who mimic those they fail to match,
And mock at all, save sin.

Thine too, those hideous slaughter-fields
Where, on the sodden plain, As mind in man to brute force yields,
Lie dead, and deathless slain.

For earnest hearts, and righteous hands
In thee have gained a prize, That goal which change and time withstands;
Christ-life the world defies.

Then, blessing Him whose presence flows
Where vision fails to view; Through summer's heat, and winter's snows,
We bid thee, Year, adieu!

THE NEW.

And turn, with heart of hope, to hail
God's gift, the latest born; Those promises which never fail
Make glad our New Year's morn.

Before His fiat nature bends,
His verdure clothes the tree; He grandeur to the mountain lends,
And sways the surging sea.

At His command the torrents pour,
The spring leaps from the rock; The eaglets from the eyrie soar,
Firm earth sustains a shock.

With power unbounded at His feet
All heaven and earth to move; Through Calvary's cross, in Him we greet,
'Yond justice, pardoning love.

Though dismal clouds at noontide lower,
What need to grope our way; Ahead doth stream, from beacon tower,
Light to celestial day.

That Hand which paints the rose's bloom,
Which hung heaven's canopy, Doth point to where, 'yond present gloom,
Unblemished landscapes be.

That Heart, responsive to the cry
Of man, and bird, and beast; Bids teeming earth, in prompt reply,
Spread out perpetual feast.

Then, sigh not o'er the buried year,
Nor mourn, in low-set voice; Young Life sings forth in accents clear;
In her sweet joy rejoice.