Art thou not glad to close <br />Thy wearied eyes, O saddest child of Time, <br />Eyes which have looked on every mortal crime, <br />And swept the piteous round of mortal woes? <br /> <br />In dark Plutonian caves, <br />Beneath the lowest deep, go, hide thy head; <br />Or earth thee where the blood that thou hast shed <br />May trickle on thee from thy countless graves! <br /> <br />Take with thee all thy gloom <br />And guilt, and all our griefs, save what the breast, <br />Without a wrong to some dear shadowy guest, <br />May not surrender even to the tomb. <br /> <br />No tear shall weep thy fall, <br />When, as the midnight bell doth toll thy fate, <br />Another lifts the sceptre of thy state, <br />And sits a monarch in thine ancient hall. <br /> <br />HIM all the hours attend, <br />With a new hope like morning in their eyes; <br />Him the fair earth and him these radiant skies <br />Hail as their sovereign, welcome as their friend. <br /> <br />Him, too, the nations wait; <br />"O lead us from the shadow of the Past," <br />In a long wail like this December blast, <br />They cry, and, crying, grow less desolate. <br /> <br />How he will shape his sway <br />They ask not -- for old doubts and fears will cling -- <br />And yet they trust that, somehow, he will bring <br />A sweeter sunshine than thy mildest day. <br /> <br />Beneath his gentle hand <br />They hope to see no meadow, vale, or hill <br />Stained with a deeper red than roses spill, <br />When some too boisterous zephyr sweeps the land. <br /> <br />A time of peaceful prayer, <br />Of law, love, labor, honest loss and gain -- <br />These are the visions of the coming reign <br />Now floating to them on this wintry air.<br /><br />Henry Timrod<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/1866-addressed-to-the-old-year/
