The Old Year, A Farewell

Where art thou going so fast, old year, Where art thou going so fast? There's a tremulous sigh in the midnight air, There are requiem whispers of wild despair— Chant they a dirge for the past, old year, The shadowy, vanished past? What is thy record, to-night, old year, What is thy record to-night? There are lessons of life unstudied, untaught, There are dreams of its schemes unwritten, unwrought, And gleanings of bliss or blight, old year, Time's gleanings of bliss or blight. Not unmeet were thy blessings, old year, Blessings that brighten for aye! There were deeds of charity, kindness and love, Forgotten below, remembered above; These, thy noblest incentives, old year, Incentives that never die. Snow-flakes are wreathing thy shroud, old year, Winds wail thy funeral knell— The seed time and harvest will come, as of yore, And seasons return with their vintage and store, But thou!—thy destiny!—death, old year Pilgrim, ephemeral, farewell!

Mrs. C. I. Baker, Arthur's Home Magazine, 1880 Annual