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THE PARTING OF THE OLD YEAR—
Found in Night's calm, gentle spiritSomething deeper, and more sacred,Than the Day, so gay and merry,Carried with her own gay spirit.So when came the hour of parting,All his griefs and all his sorrowsTo the list'ning Night he whispered. Thus it ever is with mortals;For of all the deep emotionsGushing from the soul's pure fountains,Those we hold to be most sacred,Give we ever to the keepingOf the Night, so calm and holy.For the Night unseals those fountains,While perchance come thoughts so holy,Fraught with such a mystic meaning, Mortal lips can never speak them.
But the Day, so gay and merry,Flung her golden beams as freelyRound the young brow of the New Year,As so lately she had placed them,Half in glee and half in sadness,Round the pale brow of the Old Year.And the New Year, too, laughed gayly,As if death, and pain, and sorrow,
