  Two singers sat on New Year’s eve By the blaze of a flickering fire. “The old year is burning out,” said one “Like the embers of our own life’s fire; As the fire’s blaze are our passing days, As the year shall our lives be o’er; Let us sing a rhyme to the passing year Ere we shall rhyme no more.” The elder rhymer, heavy of heart, Cried “Life is a thankless task. Its loves and its hate, its Church and State, Are only a hollow mask. Honor, and love, and rank and fame, Are chaff and idle words, And the schemes of men and the hopes of youth Are the chatter of silly birds. “Thus runs my rhyme:—The Ferryman Time With his ever-waning glass, Has laid on his bier another year And sung his Midnight Mass. From the oak wood dim rose a funeral hymn As earth bewailed the dead, And the seas made moan through every zone As the souls to Judgment fled. “The Ferryman stands on the sable sands Of the desolate Stygian stream; Not a starry eye from the stormy sky Shoots down one cheerful beam, But a hopeless wail filled the winter gale As the phantom guests rushed in, And fear and despair, and doubt were there, Hopes baffled, and woe and sin. “Ambition told how his palace fell Whose turrets braved the clouds, His royal guests changed their courtly robes His banquet hall is tenantless, Unstrung is the minstrel’s viol— Not a sound to greet but the pendulum’s beat Of the lone monotonous dial. “Genius proclaimed how folly’s scorn Robbed his nights and days of rest, And the only food of his eagle brood Was the life-blood of his breast. Bright were the gleams that lit his dreams, But ah! when he awoke His light was dead, his vision fled, And hope and heart were broke. “Pale as the light of an Eastern night Straying through orange bowers, Comes the love-crazed maid, Ophelia sad, White-robed and crowned with flowers The essence she of purity, Born for love’s pure caress, But madness quenched her soul’s desire In utter wretchedness. “So,” cried the bard, “the whole wide earth Is a den of baffled souls. ’Mid all its pleasures, joys, and hopes, The dreary death-bell tolls.” “Hold,” cried his comrade—“See the whole And judge not by a part. The end shall crown the work, and heal The disappointed heart. See where the boatman waits to cross Death’s strange, mysterious stream The endless Life to Come outlasts This mortal, transient dream. “Unworthy of a wise man’s lips Are the murmurs of despair; The heavens have never lost one star And God Himself reigns there, A faithful God created man— Wait, comrade, on God’s goodness still— Be patient to the end. “Through mists of doubt there shines a light Upon Death’s farther shore— Where the Lethean draught of peace is quaffed And the struggle of earth is o’er. Our feet shall stand on the shining strand Of Life’s eternal river, Where the buds of Hope in fullness ope And Love endures forever.” |
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