Okay, last piece of Victorian poetry of the year, and for quite a while I think, and the last blog post of 2010 from me.I stumbled across this piece just today believe it or not, and thought I best share it, given what today is.
It was in the above-mentioned ‘London Journal’ for the week ending 4th January 1862. If you have an interest in Victorian Periodicals, you can read a little about the London Journal in one of my earlier blog posts here
Anyway, Happy New Year to all readers, and have a prosperous 2011!
Now, please enjoy ‘The New Year’
The New Year
Come, bury the griefs of the Old Year,
And list to the musical chime
That welcomes the dawn of the New Year –
The new-born child of Time.
Oh, thousands of weary ones bless him,
The aged, the way-worn, and sad,
For the bells ring out musical tidings
To make the disconsolate glad.
The dawn of a New Year is breaking!
Yes, listen, dear toil-weary brother;
The bells now no solemn knells toll,
But tell a sweet tale that must waken
The sweetest delights in the soul!
O God, make their strain no delusion!
Let clouds of the past fade from view,
That all of the woes of the Old Year
Be lost in the joys of the New!
The dawn of a New Year is breaking!
In truth, oh, may this prove a New Year,
The end of oppression and strife;
The dawn of a glorious era,
The morn of millennial life;
The advent of joy, peace, and gladness,
When eaglets shall feed with the dove,
And up to Heaven’s gates shall rise only
The soul-stirring music of love.
The dawn of a New Year is breaking!
Then this would indeed be a New Year –
Despair not, brave champions of Right,
Ye martyrs, ye heroes, great workers,
Who toil on unknown through the night!
Take courage, there will be a New Year;
The night is far spent; and the day
Is at hand, when old things
Shall vanish for ever away.
The dawn of a New Year is breaking!
R. B.
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