Page:Poems Jones.djvu/113

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THE YEAR OF VICTORIES. JANUARY 1, 1865.
PALE-BROWED and breathless, flung in haste on Night's black shallop, lies the Year:
And rushing sails across the waste of Death's deep sullen tides we hear;
Oh, yet our mournful plea we urge—"Return! return! for thou wert brave;
And while we trod War's roaring surge, wert swift to reach and strong to save!"

Far, far he floats whose glories grew more bright with every hour that passed,—
Who loaded all the winds that blew with his triumphal bugle-blast;
But while his dirge in solemn flow goes wailing through our troubled reeds,
Break from the breathings of its woe and voice the grandeur of his deeds.