SONG OF THE NEW YEAR

I heard the bells at midnight

Ring in the dawning year;

And above the clanging chorus

Of the song, I seemed to hear

A choir of mystic voices

Flinging echoes, ringing clear,

From a band of angels winging

Through the haunted atmosphere:

“Ring out the shame and sorrow,

And the misery and sin,

That the dawning of the morrow

May in peace be ushered in.”

And I thought of all the trials

The departed years had cost,

And the blooming hopes and pleasures

That are withered now and lost;

And with joy I drank the music

Stealing o'er the feeling there

As the spirit song came pealing

On the silence everywhere:

“Ring out the shame and sorrow,

And the misery and sin,

That the dawning of the morrow

May in peace be ushered in.”

And I listened as a lover

To an utterance that flows

In syllables like dewdrops

From the red lips of a rose,

Till the anthem, fainter growing,

Climbing higher, chiming on

Up the rounds of happy rhyming,

Slowly vanished in the dawn:

“Ring out the shame and sorrow,

And the misery and sin,

That the dawning of the morrow

May in peace be ushered in.”

Then I raised my eyes to Heaven,

And with trembling lips I pled

For a blessing for the living

And a pardon for the dead;

And like a ghost of music

Slowly whispered — lowly sung —

Came the echo pure and holy

In the happy angel tongue:

“Ring out the shame and sorrow,

And the misery and sin,

And the dawn of every morrow

Will in peace be ushered in.”