Once on the year's last eve in my mind's might <br />Sitting in dreams, not sad, nor quite elysian, <br />Balancing all 'twixt wonder and derision, <br />Methought my body and all this world took flight, <br />And vanished from me, as a dream, outright; <br />Leaning out thus in sudden strange decision, <br />I saw as it were in the flashing of a vision, <br />Far down between the tall towers of the night, <br />Borne by great winds in awful unison, <br />The teeming masses of mankind sweep by, <br />Even as a glittering river with deep sound <br />And innumerable banners, rolling on <br />Over the starry border glooms that bound <br />The last gray space in dim eternity. <br /> <br />And all that strange unearthly multitude <br />Seemed twisted in vast seething companies, <br />That evermore with hoarse and terrible cries <br />And desperate encounter at mad feud <br />Plunged onward, each in its implacable mood <br />Borne down over the trampled blazonries <br />Of other faiths and other phantasies, <br />Each falling furiously, and each pursued; <br />So sped they on with tumult vast and grim, <br />But ever meseemed beyond them I could see <br />White-haloed groups that sought perpetually <br />The figure of one crowned and sacrificed; <br />And faint, far forward, floating tall and dim, <br />The banner of our Lord and Master, Christ.<br /><br />Archibald Lampman<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/new-year-s-eve-16/
