New Year's Musings Poem by Alfred Gibbs Campbell

Eighteen hundred and eighty-two,
Pass along; we have done with you.
Your record is sealed and laid away,
Not to be opened till Judgment-day.


Eighteen hundred and eighty-three,
Tell us what shall thy outcome be?
Whom of our friends shalt thou lay away
Beneath the cold and unpitying clay?
Shall we, at thy close, be living here,
Or shall we have joined, in a happier sphere,
Our friends who have left us and gone before,
And whose feet now tread on the 'shining shore'?
Shall our hopes, which now are budding and warm,
Bloom into fruitage or yield to the storm?
Shall our souls grow brighter, and fairer and truer?
Shall Happiness yield to us when we would woo her?
Shall Health on our cheeks grow her prettiest roses?
Shall Sorrow befall us before thy reign closes?
Thou makest no answer, nor liftest thy curtain
Which hides from our vision the doubtful and certain.
But one thing we know, and it 's surely enough;
Whether thou deal with us gently or rough,
Our Father our destinies holds in His hand,
And thou canst do nothing His love hath not planned!


January 1, 1883.