Farewell To The Old Year Of 1855 Poem by William Billington

FAREWELL, old year, for thy death-knell has rung!
One solemn peal, flung from the tower of Time,
Proclaims that to the mighty Past belong
Thy works and woes-misfortunes-deeds sublime!
Dark sin-deep sore! Thy catalogue of crime
Hath greatly grown beneath War's bloody hand,
And Valour now, as in her ancient prime,
Hath laurels won for this her native land,
And stormed Oppression's walls, when Freedom gave
command.

The fiery feet of desolating War
Were kissed by Fame and Famine, till the reign
Of death-born Sorrow, stretching wide and far,
Had dipped the World in Grief's pale sea of pain;
Ten thousand maidens mourn their lovers slain,
Ten thousand wives their husbands-fathers, sons,
By Mars rude-mangled on the ball-paved plain,
Or crushed and buried by their splintered guns,
Have sunk to glorious death, as Fate's dark current runs.

But thou hast hung thy helmet in the skies
Of History, and trod beneath thy feet,
Trade, Commerce, Peace and Progress, while the cries
Of want-worn Labour filled thy ear! Go greet
The sea of years and ages obsolete,
And be the darkest wave that rolls thereon!
Whilst journeying the Future, may we meet
No more like thee, dim, gory, weeping one!
Thy daughter's at our door-Old Year now get thee gone!