Page:Poems Welby.djvu/172

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164
While Fancy from her starry height
Returns with mournful eye,
And, folding up her rainbow wing.
Stands meekly pensive by.

Hark! the low winds are sighing now
O'er the departed year,
And gathering in dim autumn leaves,
To strew upon His bier,
While the tall trees stand leafless round,
Unstirred by summer's breath,
Like mourners reft of every hope
Above the couch of death.

But now the sepulchre of years
Hath closed its portals o'er
The form of the departed year
In silence as before;
And the New-Year with stately tread
Steals slowly o'er the earth,
Robed in the garments of his state,
A monarch from his birth.

Could we but lift the mildewed veil
O'er buried ages cast,
And bring to light the darkened things
That slumber with the past,
Sad mysteries, undreamed of now,
One glance would then unfold,