⁠Time brings changes,
⁠Joys and cares,
⁠Stealing on us
⁠Unawares.

Yesterday is gone for aye,
And to-morrow is to-day;
So the hours flee fast away,
⁠And the days roll on.

See the young spring's budding story
Fading in the summer's glory,
Autumn dies to winter hoary,
⁠And the days roll on.

⁠From the church tower,
⁠Hark; the bell
⁠Tolls the old year's
⁠Passing knell.

Ah! how swift the months have fled,
Since around his infant head
Hope her dewy halo shed!
⁠So the days roll on.

Spread of stainless snow his pall,
Let its whiteness cover all,
The dark proofs of many a fall,
⁠As the days rolled on.

⁠Crimson gashes
⁠Hide from sight,
⁠And deeper hued,
⁠Shunning light.

Sorrows that our hearts have known,
Hopes that are forever flown,
Crosses we have borne alone,
⁠As the days rolled on.

Welcome in the new-born year,
Though we see but dimly here,
There is One who seeth clear
⁠As the days roll on.

⁠Time brings changes,
⁠Joys and cares,
⁠Stealing on us
⁠Unawares.

Bring this new year what it may,
Sweet or bitter, night or day,
It full soon shall flee away,
⁠And the days roll on.

Love is living, faith is strong, —
Be the hours or swift or long,
Still they chant their morning song
⁠As the days roll on.

So still the starry night, I almost fear
⁠My mortal tread, lest I should put to flight
A fairy that, for sometime of the year,
⁠Holds court in this old garden by the night.
The flow'rs are broad awake: for very truth
⁠On this forsaken ground enchantment dwells,
Such as may breathless hold an am'rous youth,
⁠Who seeks at dead of night for lover spells,
⁠With anxious, fearful heart in haunted dells.

I will not walk, but sit upon this seat,
⁠That I may see, and hear, and no noise make;
In time gone by how many gentle feet
⁠Strayed hitherward to rest for dear love's sake?
Brave, bright-eyed youths, and many a gentle maid
⁠Came, haply, here in June or autumn cold,
Leaving the great hall by the portal's shade
⁠To tell a tale that even then was old —
⁠How oft at this seat has the tale been told?
 
The growing things, it seems, have eyes to see;
⁠They softly shake their heads, but make no moan;
It may be they are whispering of me,
⁠And wond'ring why I wandered here alone.
I am not waiting for a partner; no,
⁠You need not point at me for that; the hall
Is rank with ruin; lovers do not go
⁠To feast together at the baron's call,
⁠For years they have been dead and buried, all.

How silent! how bewilderingly calm!
⁠How strange in such a place to be alone!
The big owl on the bough is fixed by charm;
⁠The cat sits on the wall still as a stone:
Listen! the nightingale ! Oh, what a thrill
⁠Of glory falls on all fair things around!
Now know I why this place has been so still;
⁠The fairies have shut out all grosser sound
⁠To hear your song in this old garden-ground.

With pipe and flute the rustic Pan
Of old made music sweet to man,
⁠And wonder hushed the warbling bird,
⁠And closelier drew the calm-eyed herd, —
The rolling river slowlier ran.

Ah! would, ah! would, a little span,
Some air of Arcady could fan
⁠This age of ours too seldom stirred
⁠With pipe and flute!
 
But now for gold we plot and plan;
And from Beersheba unto Dan,
⁠An Orpheus' self might walk unheard,
⁠Or find the night-jar's note preferred:
Not so it fared when time began,
⁠With pipe and flute!