Singing, I hear the whole world sing,
Afar, anear, aloud, alow:
"What to us will the New Year bring!"
Ah! would that each of us might know!
Is it not truth? as old as true?
List ye, singers, the while ye sing!
Each year bringeth to each of you
What each of you will have him bring.
The year that cometh is a king,
With better gifts than the old year gave;
If you place on his fingers the holy ring
Of prayer, the king becomes your slave.
Zeila (A Story from a Star)
From the mystic sidereal spaces,
In the noon of a night 'mid of May,
Came a spirit that murmured to me --
Or was it the dream of a dream?
No! no! from the purest of places,
Where liveth the highest of races,
In an unfallen sphere far away
(And it wore Immortality's gleam)
Came a Being. Hath seen on the sea
The sheen of some silver star shimmer
'Thwart shadows that fall dim and dimmer
O'er a wave half in dream on the deep?
It shone on me thus in my sleep.
Was I sleeping? Is sleep but the closing,
In the night, of our eyes from the light?
Doth the spirit of man e'en then rest?
Or doth it not toil all the more?
When the earth-wearied frame is reposing,
Is the vision then veiled the less bright?
When the earth from our sight hath been taken,
The fetters of senses off shaken,
The soul, doth it not then awaken
To the light on Infinity's shore?
And is not its vision then best,
And truest, and farthest, and clearest?
In night, is not heaven the nearest?
Ah, me! let the day have his schemers,
Let them work on their ways as they will,
And their workings, I trow, have their worth.
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