Only a year ago —
⁠And do you remember how
⁠We sat as we're sitting now,
And the fire was low?
And all the room was dark
⁠Behind us, table and chair,
Save when a restless spark
⁠Leapt from the embers there;
⁠And the tick of the clock on the stair,
Or a creak in the oaken floor,
Was all we heard—no more.

For the bells in the minster-tower
⁠Had ended their muffled chime;
⁠And we watched through the solemn time
Before the strike of the hour.
How long it seemed, as with breath
⁠Bated, and straining ear,
We sat as still as death —
⁠So still we seemed to hear
⁠The wings of the flying year
Beat, as it sped apace
Above, through the night and space!

How fast the years go by!
⁠We are sitting here again
⁠As we sat together then
To see the old year die.
Hark! how the wind outside
⁠In the garden among the trees
Sighs with the sound of a rising tide
⁠In far-off seas;
⁠And blown on the fitful breeze
The roll of muffled bells
Swells and sinks and swells.

There — they have stopped at last:
⁠And all the air is dumb,
⁠And wizard memories come
To conjure up the past.
The ghost of days gone by
⁠In well-known shape begins
To rise before my eye.
⁠Old sorrows, joys, and sins,
⁠Dead triumphs and chagrins,
Long-buried hope and pain —
I see them all again.

These moments leave one space
⁠To slip aside from the crowd,
⁠Where the race runs hot and loud,
And meet self face to face.
They give us time to whet
⁠Our wills, and rear a heap
Of aims we soon upset,
⁠And vows we cannot keep,
⁠And know we cannot keep.
How eagerly we weave
This hollow make-believe!

Yet, if it were not thus,
⁠We should almost die of despair;
⁠So let the illusion fair
Stay and encourage us.
Whenever we will what is good
⁠We are better because we willed;
And there's worth in an honest would,
⁠Although it be not fulfilled.
⁠For 'tis not with success that we build
Our life, but with noble endeavor.
Full success is a prize won never.

But, listen! the bells ring out
⁠To usher in the year.
⁠Farewell to every fear!
Farewell to every doubt!
It seems so easy now
⁠(Bells touch one's blood with flame)
To compass every vow,
⁠And realize each aim;
⁠But will it be the same
By to-morrow morning's light?
Oh, ask not that — good-night.

Slowly the sunset fades;
⁠Night's shadows fall;
The pale moon glimmers thro' the shades
About the poplars tall;
The river's waves amid the reeds
⁠Like wan grey serpents crawl.

A hushing wind doth go
⁠In secret, where
The rushes bend with the waves' flow,
And the reeds twist like hair —
Slow stealing, till it takes the ashen boughs
⁠With sudden gusts of air.

Somewhere, a too-late bird
⁠Makes shrilly sound;
Close by, the marish frogs are heard
Upon the weedy ground;
A white owl flits on ghostly wing,
⁠And the bats swarm around.

The quivering planets shine
⁠Through the black night;
They seem to hang like fireflies on
The tree-tops all alight:
The rustling topmost leaves all gleam
⁠With silvery white.

The pale moon grows apace
⁠A warmer hue;
It draws a veil across the face
Of night, which looketh through;
It floods the hills and hidden dells
⁠With misty, yellowy dew.

Like pale gold dew it lies
⁠On half-seen trees;
With broad and yellow sheets it clads
The sloping flowery leas;
Its misty smile in the far skies
⁠Lights up the restless seas.

A hushing wind doth go
⁠In secret, where
The reeds within the river's flow
Wave like long twisted hair,
And dies in silence on the lips
⁠Of lilies lying there.