Song Of The New Year

I heard the bells at midnight
    Ring in the dawning year;
And above the clanging chorus
    Of the song, I seemed to hear
A choir of mystic voices
    Flinging echoes, ringing clear,
From a band of angels winging
    Through the haunted atmosphere:
        "Ring out the shame and sorrow,
            And the misery and sin,
        That the dawning of the morrow
            May in peace be ushered in."

And I thought of all the trials
    The departed years had cost,
And the blooming hopes and pleasures
    That are withered now and lost;
And with joy I drank the music
    Stealing o'er the feeling there
As the spirit song came pealing
    On the silence everywhere:
        "Ring out the shame and sorrow,
            And the misery and sin,
        That the dawning of the morrow
            May in peace be ushered in."

And I listened as a lover
    To an utterance that flows
In syllables like dewdrops
    From the red lips of a rose,
Till the anthem, fainter growing,
    Climbing higher, chiming on
Up the rounds of happy rhyming,
    Slowly vanished in the dawn:
        "Ring out the shame and sorrow,
            And the misery and sin,
        That the dawning of the morrow
            May in peace be ushered in."

Then I raised my eyes to Heaven,
    And with trembling lips I pled
For a blessing for the living
    And a pardon for the dead;
And like a ghost of music
    Slowly whispered - lowly sung -
Came the echo pure and holy
    In the happy angel tongue:
        "Ring out the shame and sorrow,
            And the misery and sin,
        And the dawn of every morrow
            Will in peace be ushered in."

James Whitcomb Riley

James Whitcomb Riley was an American writer, poet, and best-selling author. He was known as the "Hoosier Poet" and the "Children's Poet" for his dialect works and children's poetry respectively. Over his career, Riley authored approximately 1,000 poems, including "Little Orphant Annie" and "The Raggedy Man". His influence extended into the 20th century, and his works continued to be celebrated for their nostalgic and rural themes.

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English

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    As one in sorrow looks upon
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A New Year's Plaint

In words like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er,
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                        - TENNYSON.

The bells that lift their yawning throats
    And lolling tongues with wrangling cries
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Like a fragrant incense rising, curled the smoke of my cigar,
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I had fed the fire and stirred it, till the sparkles in delight
Snapped their saucy little fingers at the chill December night;
And in dressing-gown and slippers, I had tilted back "my throne" -
The old split-bottomed rocker - and was musing all alone.

I could hear the hungry Winter prowling round the outer door,
And the tread of muffled footsteps on the white piazza floor;
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When with clanging and with ringing
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In our eons of existence,
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Sound over all waters, reach out from all lands,
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