FLUSHED with a crimson sunrise beauty, <br />The fair new year its promise gave; <br />Such dreams we had of love, of duty, <br />Of heights to scale, of foes to brave! <br />Oh, how hope's fire our future lighted-- <br />How much to do, how much to know, <br />Yet on its brink we shrank affrighted <br />A year ago. <br /> <br /> <br />And now the year is done--its pleasure <br />So brief, so bright--its hours of pain; <br />Some moments' memories we treasure, <br />Some recollections loathe in vain. <br />Oh, for a brain where could not waken <br />Remembrances of purpose crossed, <br />Of trusts abandoned, aims forsaken, <br />And chances lost! <br /> <br /> <br />The changing seasons thrust upon us <br />Another year, fair-faced and new; <br />What evil have the old years done us <br />That this in its turn will not do? <br />This, too, will die, and leave us grieving <br />For all the ills its arms enfold-- <br />For faiths betrayed, for friends deceiving, <br />And love grown cold. <br /> <br /> <br />We have been fooled. The hopes that fooled us-- <br />We know them now--have been a lie; <br />The star that led, the light that ruled us-- <br />We scorn them, and we pass them by. <br />Shut out hope's light; past is the season <br />When rose-red glow seemed good to see. <br />Look--by the cold white light of reason, <br />These things shall be: <br /> <br /> <br />A long, dim vista, blank and dreary-- <br />The same hard failure, small success; <br />The same tired heart, the brain still weary <br />Of its intense self-consciousness; <br />The old despair, the old repining, <br />And, through the future's deepest night, <br />Down life's untrodden ways still shining, <br />The old hope's light!<br /><br />Edith Nesbit<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/for-the-new-year-2/
