A Message for the Old Year

Soon shall we have the New Year in his place;
With empty hands and unexpectant eyes
I sit and ponder while the Old Year dies;
"Lo! from the stainless cold of the first days,
To this most gentle night, through all thy ways
Have I not walked unchanged? With songs like cries,
Wrung out of sorrow which Love deifies,
I have assailed thee. Now as one who prays,

"Hoping for acceptation of his prayer,
I pray thee, dying year, that shouldst thou meet,
In that dim place where all our sweet dreams be,
The ghosts of years that knew even her and me,
Thou say how one, forlorn, with weary feet,
Treads the dark path that leads he knows not where."