Mobile Mystic Societies

The olden golden stories of the world,

That stirred the past,

And now are dim as dreams,

The lays and legends which the bards unfurled

In lines that last,

All — rhymed with glooms and gleams.

Fragments and fancies writ on many a page

By deathless pen,

And names, and deeds that all along each age,

Thrill hearts of men.

And pictures erstwhile framed in sun or shade

Of many climes,

And life's great poems that can never fade

Nor lose their chimes;

And acts and facts that must forever ring

Like temple bells,

That sound or seem to sound where angels sing

Vesper farewells;

And scenes where smiles are strangely touching tears,

‘ Tis ever thus,

Strange Mystics! in the meeting of the years

Ye bring to us

All these, and more; ye make us smile and sigh,

Strange power ye hold!

When New Year kneels low in the star-aisled sky

And asks the Old

To bless us all with love, and life, and light,

And when they fold

Each other in their arms, ye stir the sight,

We look, and lo!

The past is passing, and the present seems

To wish to go.

Ye pass between them on your mystic way

Thro’ scene and scene,

The Old Year marches through your ranks, away

To what has been,

The while the pageant moves, it scarcely seems

Apart of earth;

The Old Year dies — and heaven crowns with gleams

The New Year's birth.

And you — you crown yourselves with heaven's grace

To enter here;

A prayer — ascending from an orphan face,

Or just one tear

May meet you in the years that are to be

A blessing rare.

Ye pass beneath the arch of charity,

Who passeth there

Is blest in heaven, and is blest on earth,

And God will care,

Beyond the Old Year's death and New Year's birth,

For each of you, ye Mystics! everywhere.