But heard are the voices, The worlds and the ages: "Here eyes do regard you Ye brave, to reward you: 7. HYMN. 8. BENEDICTION. ་ THE NEW YEAR. I. HYMN. 2. SCRIPTURE LESSON: REVELATION xxi., xxii. 3. THE NEW YEAR. ON bells in the steeple, ring, ring out YON your changes, How many soever they be ; And let the brown meadow-lark's note, as he ranges, Come over, come over, to me. Yet bird's clearest carol, by fall or by swelling, No magical sense conveys; And bells have forgotten their old art of telling The fortune of future days. "Turn again, turn again," once they rang cheer ily, While a boy listened alone; Made his heart yearn again, musing so wearily All by himself on a stone. Poor bells, I forgive you. Your good days are over; And mine-they are yet to be. No listening, no longing, shall aught, aught dis Cover: You leave the story to me. The foxglove shoots out of the green matted heather, And hangeth her hoods of snow; She was idle, and slept till the sunshiny weather: Oh! children take long to grow. I wish, and I wish, that the spring would go faster, Nor long summer bide so late, And I could grow on like the foxglove and aster; For some things are ill to wait. I wait for the day when dear hearts shall dis cover, While dear hands are laid on my head, "The child is a woman; the book may close over; For all the lessons are said." I wait for my story: the birds cannot sing it,Not one, as he sits on the tree; The bells cannot ring it; but long years, oh, bring it, NTO the Silent Land, INTO Clouds in the evening sky more darkly gather, Who leads us with a gentle hand Into the Silent Land? Into the Silent Land! To you, ye boundless regions |