Another wave spent on the shore of Time;
One more pulse of Eternity's great heart;
Another echo of that bell whose chime
Tolls deeply, ‘Dust thou art!’

Another year gone down into the dark,
Its muffled footsteps silent in their tread,
Yet leaving prints by which our eyes may mark
Its course toward the dead.

Gone with its joys and woes, delights and fears,
Its radiant promises and blasted hopes;
Its beauteous dewdrops changed to burning tears,
Its tears to pearly drops.

Gone with its storms, its sunshine and its showers,
Its tearful dawnings and its twilight haze;
Its woodland melodies, its bees and flowers,
That tranced the summer days.

Gone with the balmy kisses of its spring;
Gone with the blood-flush of its faded eves;
Gone with its swallow-flight on glimmering wing
Gone with its fallen leaves.

Gone, ere the echo of its blustering breath
Has ceased to sweep across th' affrighted waves;
Gone, when long-looked-for eyes are glazed in death,
Down in their ocean graves.

Gone, while as yet the shouts of strife ascend,
And war's red fury flames in brethren's eyes—
When with the pure air yells of passion blend,
And carnage flouts the skies.

Dead year! where is the promise of thy birth?—
Those splendid streaks which at thy dawn were seen?
Have Peace and Truth advanced? and is the earth
Better that thou hast been?

Such gloom is round us that a gleam of light
Can scarcely through the close-piled shadows stray—
And yet I know the darkest hour of night
Is just before the day!

Then sleep, dead year, among thy kindred dust,—
Though death and tears have marked thy darkened reign,
Though war's wild clamours have been thine—we trust
Thou hast not lived in vain.

And sweep, O Time, along thy silent way,
Till the last shadow of the Night be gone,
And we behold on the horizon gray
The laughing light of Dawn!