Poems (Curwen)/The Year of the Jubilee
The Year of Jubilee.
A RETROSPECT.
Old Time has rung the curtain down On the departed year, With Nature's sympathetic face Bent on its rain-drenched bier.
Ah, me! how swift its days have flown, With all their hopes and fears; Now days, weeks, months, are garnered in The great storehouse of years.
They lie upon its threshing floor, With all their good and ill, Awaiting their appointed hour For passing thro' God's mill.
Oh! 'tis a strange soul-stirring thought, What if we've lived in vain? What, if in sifting sheaves of ours, God finds no golden grain.
For eighteen hundred ninety-seven? Thank heav'n 'tis not too late; New fields of labour wait for all In eighteen ninety-eight.
Fresh opportunities are given To each to start anew; But here we think of future days, Let us the past review.
The year that has just passed away, All classes will agree, Has been a most momentous one In English history.
Our good Queen's Diamond Jubilee— God bless her! all will say—On June the twenty-second, was The great red letter day.
Then one and all, both old and young, Of rich and poor degree, Were one in heart and mind, to show Their love and loyalty.
Old London saw a pageant then, A grander ne'er's been seen, Nobilities from every clime Paid homage to our Queen.
One common bond united all, One toast on sea and shore, The great Victoria's honoured name Revered the wide world o'er.
In darkest contrast, India stood A death's head at our feast; Famine and plague, twin horrors, they, Were raging in the East.
And war, and rumoured wars, e'en then Were knocking at our door; We heard above our songs of joy The cannon's distant roar.
A baleful influence seemed at work Both upon land and sea; For floods, fires, storms, combined to mar Our year of jubilee.
The engineers' lock-out, too, cast Its shadow far and wide; And many hapless homes have been In want this Christmastide.
Heaven grant a speedy settlement, And may we live to see Labour and capital go hand In hand harmoniously.
Grave interests are at stake; we need The wisdom of a seer, To safely guide the National barque Throughout the coming year.
Born amid universal strife, Who can prognosticate The issues of events which lie In eighteen ninety-eight?
Would God, all strife and discord might Cease now, for evermore; And peace with this new year be born On every troubled shore.