The olden golden stories of the world,
That stirred the past,
And now are dim as dreams,
The lays and legends which the bards unfurled
In lines that last,
All — rhymed with glooms and gleams.
Fragments and fancies writ on many a page
By deathless pen,
And names, and deeds that all along each age,
Thrill hearts of men.
And pictures erstwhile framed in sun or shade
Of many climes,
And life’s great poems that can never fade
Nor lose their chimes;
And acts and facts that must forever ring
Like temple bells,
That sound or seem to sound where angels sing
Vesper farewells;
And scenes where smiles are strangely touching tears,
‘Tis ever thus,
Strange Mystics! in the meeting of the years
Ye bring to us
All these, and more; ye make us smile and sigh,
Strange power ye hold!
When New Year kneels low in the star-aisled sky
And asks the Old
To bless us all with love, and life, and light,
And when they fold
Each other in their arms, ye stir the sight,
We look, and lo!
The past is passing, and the present seems
To wish to go.
Ye pass between them on your mystic way
Thro’ scene and scene,
The Old Year marches through your ranks, away
To what has been,
The while the pageant moves, it scarcely seems
Apart of earth;
The Old Year dies — and heaven crowns with gleams
The New Year’s birth.
And you — you crown yourselves with heaven’s grace
To enter here;
A prayer — ascending from an orphan face,
Or just one tear
May meet you in the years that are to be
A blessing rare.
Ye pass beneath the arch of charity,
Who passeth there
Is blest in heaven, and is blest on earth,
And God will care,
Beyond the Old Year’s death and New Year’s birth,
For each of you, ye Mystics! everywhere.