Just think! some night the stars will gleam
Upon a cold, grey stone,
And trace a name with silver beam,
And lo! ’twill be your own.
That night is speeding on to greet
Your epitaphic rhyme.
Your life is but a little beat
Within the heart of time.
A little gain, a little pain,
A laugh, lest you may moan;
A little blame, a little fame,
A star-gleam on a stone.
My glass is filled, my pipe is lit,
My den is all a cosy glow;
And snug before the fire I sit,
And wait to feel the old year go.
I dedicate to solemn thought
Amid my too-unthinking days,
This sober moment, sadly fraught
With much of blame, with little praise.
Old Year! upon the stage of Time
You stand to bow your last adieu;
A moment, and the prompter’s chime
Will ring the curtain down on you.
Your mien is sad, your step is slow;
You falter as a Sage in pain;
Yet turn, Old Year, before you go,
And face your audience again.
That sphinx-like face, remote, austere,
Let us all read, what’er the cost:
O Maiden! why that bitter tear?
Is it for dear one you have lost?
Is it for fond illusion gone?
For trusted lover proved untrue?
O sweet girl-face, so sad, so wan
What hath the Old Year meant to you?
And you, O neighbor on my right
So sleek, so prosperously clad!
What see you in that aged wight
That makes your smile so gay and glad?
What opportunity unmissed?
What golden gain,what pride of place?
What splendid hope? O Optimist!
What read you in that withered face?
And you, deep shrinking in the gloom,
What find you in that filmy gaze?
What menace of tragic doom?
What dark condemning yesterdays?
What urge to crime, what evil done?
What cold, confronting shape of fear?
O haggard, haunted, hidden One
What see you in the dying year?
And so from face to face I flit,
The countless eyes that stare and stare;
Some are with aprobation lit,
And some are shadowed with despair.
Some show a smile and some a frown;
Some joy and hope, some pain and woe:
Enough! Oh, ring the curtain down!
Old weary year! it’s time to go.
My pipe is out, my glass is dry;
My fire is almost ashes too;
But once again, before you go,
And I prepare to meet the New;
Old Year! a parting word that’s true,
For we’ve been comrades, you and I —
I thank God for each day of you;
There! bless you now! Old Year, good-bye!
I’m dreaming to-night in the fire-glow, alone in my study
tower,
My books battalioned around me, my Kipling flat on my
knee;
But I’m not in the mood for reading, I haven’t moved
for an hour;
Body and brain I’m weary, weary the heart of me;
Weary of crushing a longing it’s little I understand,
For I thought that my trail was ended, I thought I had
earned my rest;
But oh, it’s stronger than life is, the call of the hearthless
land!
And I turn to the North in my trouble, as a child to the
mother-breast.
” But it isn’t playing the game,” he said,
And slammed his books away;
” The Latin and Greek I’ve got in my head
Will do for a duller day.”
” Rubbish! ” I cried; “The bugle’s call
Isn’t for lads from school.”
D’ye think he’d listen? Oh, not at all:
So I called him a fool, a fool.
Now there’s his dog by his empty bed,
And the flute he used to play,
And his favorite bat . . . But Dick he’s dead,
Somewhere in France, they say:
Dick with his rapture of song and sun,
Dick of the yellow hair,
Dicky whose life had but begun,
Carrion-cold out there.
Look at his prizes all in a row:
Surely a hint of fame.
Now he’s finished with,– nothing to show :
Doesn’t it seem a shame?
Look from the window! All you see
Was to be his one day:
Forest and furrow, lawn and lea,
And he goes and chucks it away.
Chucks it away to die in the dark:
Somebody saw him fall,
Part of him mud, part of him blood,
The rest of him — not at all.
And yet I’ll bet he was never afraid,
And he went as the best of ’em go,
For his hand was clenched on his broken blade,
And his face was turned to the foe.
And I called him a fool . . . oh how blind
was I!
And the cup of my grief’s abrim.
Will glory o’ England ever die
So long as we’ve lads like him?
So long as we’ve fond and fearless fools,
Who, spurning fortune and fame,
Turn out with the rallying cry of their schools,
Just bent on playing the game.
A fool! Ah no! He was more than wise.
His was the proudest part.
He died with the glory of faith in his eyes,
And the glory of love in his heart.
And though there’s never a grave to tell,
Nor a cross to mark his fall,
Thank God ! we know that he ” batted well “
In the last great Game of all.
And so when he reached my bed
The General made a stand:
” My brave young fellow,” he said,
” I would shake your hand.”
So I lifted my arm, the right,
With never a hand at all;
Only a stump, a sight
Fit to appal.
” Well, well. Now that’s too bad!
That’s sorrowful luck,” he said;
” But there! You give me, my lad,
The left instead.”
So from under the blankets rim
I raised and showed him the other,
A snag as ugly and grim
As its ugly brother.
He looked at each jagged wrist;
He looked but he did not speak;
And then he bent down and kissed
Me on either cheek.
You wonder now I don’t mind
I hadn’t a hand to offer. . . .
They tell me (you know I’m blind)
‘Twas Grand-père Joffre.
bdabbott 