Time's river flows without a break or bridge,
The moments run to days, the days to years:
Strange how we pause on the dividing ridge,
Which 'twixt Old Year and New our fancy rears!
There, with divided mind, see England stand,
Between the chill of fear, the flush of hope,
Scanning the cloud that lies about the land,
For any rift that way to light may ope.
With backward survey o'er the dark "has been,"
With forward gaze into the dark "to be:"
Summing the good and ill that we have seen,
As if God's purposes stood plain to see —
As if 'twere man's to reach Heaven's far-off ends;
To reckon up Time's harvest in the seed;
To write off gains of good and ill's amends —
The balance of their books as traders read.
As thick a fold between us and the past,
As e'er between us and the future, lies:
The ills we grieve for may work good at last:
Out of our seeming good what ills may rise!
Only one thing we know, that over all
A wise and loving Power holds sovereign sway:
This knowing, let us stand between the years,
Bent but to do the duty of the day;
Speaking the truth and holding to the right,
As we the truth can reach, the right can read;
Trusting the hand that steers, through dark and light,
By His lode-star, not ours, to ends decreed.
Between our larger and our lesser worlds,
Of self, home, city, state or continent,
There is no variance of far or near,
Of great or small, in that Guide's measurement,
Twixt strokes of policy that hit or miss,
And sleights of skill that make or mar a cause.
Then, grateful, take his gifts, his strokes, submiss,
And look to man for rule, to Heaven for laws.