Relaxing music:Autumn colors
Helen Hunt Jackson (1892)
Only a night from old to new!
The Old Year’s hopes its heart laid down,
True love it shall understand;
Always a night from old to new!
Only a night from old to new;
Only a night, and so much wrought!
The Old Year’s heart all weary grew,
But said: “The New Year rest has brought.”
As in a grave; but trusting, said:
“The blossoms of the New Year’s crown
Bloom from the ashes of the dead.”
The Old Year’s heart was full of greed;
With selfishness it longed and ached,
And cried: “I have not half I need.
My thirst is bitter and unslaked.
But to the New Year’s generous hand
All gifts in plenty shall return;
By all my failures it shall learn.
I have been reckless; it shall be
Quiet and calm and pure of life.
I was a slave; it shall go free,
And find sweet peace where I leave strife.”
Never a night such changes brought.
The Old Year had its work to do;
No New Year miracles are wrought.
Night and the healing balm of sleep!
Each morn is New Year’s morn come true,
Morn of a festival to keep.
All nights are sacred nights to make
Confession and resolve and prayer;
All days are sacred days to wake
New gladness in the sunny air.
Only a sleep from night to morn.
The new is but the old come true;
Each sunrise sees a new year born.
Inessa & Garmash painting
Old years and new
Old years and new years, all blended into one,
Old years and new years, life's in the making still;
Old years and new years, with all their pain and strife,
By Edgar Guest
The best of what there is to be, the best of what is gone
Let's bury all the failures in the dim and dusty past
And keep the smiles of friendship and laughter to the last.
We haven't come to glory yet, but there's the hope we will;
The dead old year was twelve months long, but now from it we're free,
And what's one year of good or bad to all the years to be?
Old years and new years, we need them one and all
To reach the dome of character and build its sheltering wall;
Past failures tried the souls of us, but if their tests we stood.
The sum of what we are to be may yet be counted good.
Are but the bricks and steel and stone with which we fashion life;
So put the sin and shame away, and keep the fine and true,
And on the glory of the past let's build the better new.
Frederic Church Art
Ring Out, Wild Bells
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring out a slowly dying cause,
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
Ring in the valiant man and free,
by Lord Alfred Tennyson (1849)
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more,
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Ring out the want, the care the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkenss of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
A happy New Year! Grant that I
May bring no tear to any eye.
When this New Year in time shall end
Let it be said I've played the friend,
Have lived and loved and labored here,
And made of it a happy year.
Edgar A. Guest
No comments:
Post a Comment