We hailed thy white-robed natal hour,
Rejoiced in dawning Spring;
Now Autumn fruit, and Summer flower
Have passed, and sad we sing
Thy requiem. Oh vanished year!
Thy deeds of shame and wrong,
Thy widows' cry, thy orphans' tear
Well nigh untune my song.
Thine was the fraud, the private cheat,
The mean in purse and thought;
Leal worshippers at Mammon's feet,
Who sold their Heaven for nought.
Thine were those souls that slander hatch,
That tortuous tangles spin;
Who mimic those they fail to match,
And mock at all, save sin.
Thine too, those hideous slaughter-fields
Where, on the sodden plain,
As mind in man to brute force yields,
Lie dead, and deathless slain.
Yet, through that Power who quelled the storm
With mandate "Peace! be still!"
Thy friendships were not all mere form,
Thy doings not all ill.
For earnest hearts, and righteous hands
In thee have gained a prize,
That goal which change and time withstands;
Christ-life the world defies.
Then, blessing Him whose presence flows
Where vision fails to view;
Through summer's heat, and winter's snows,
We bid thee, Year, adieu!