Fourteen sonnets and poems/The New Year
Let this auspicious morning be express'd
With a white stone distinguished from the rest,
White as thy fame, and as thy honor clear;
And let new joys attend on thy new-added year.
Dryden.
The New Year
As speed the years in their unceasing roll,
A sense of newness fills each breaking morn;
And aims, by which we would our lives dorn,
Fresh impulse gain from out each anxious soul.
Yet with each falling night misgivings come
From partial failure, warding off dismay
By new resolves that wait the coming day,—
When, lo! the Fates our purpose will benumb.
Master is he, thus conscious of life's stress,
Who, year by year thro' toil, a path has found
To best from better, as its vantage ground;
And he whose mission, too, has been far less,
To strive in sunshine, than in shadows grope,
Still finds his heart replete with youth and hope.