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New Year Song
- WE climb the hill; the mist conceals
- That valley where we could not stay;
- Surely this hill’s crest, gained, reveals
- The glory of the sunlit day.
- The hill is climbed. Still shadow‐land—
- Still darkling looms another hill.
- Oh, weary feet!—climb that to find
- A new ascent, ’mid shadows still!
- We dare not stop or think of rest,
- This one hill may be all that lies
- Between us and our souls’ desire—
- The splendour of the eastern skies.
- Through long long lives we till and tend,
- Sow, weed, and water, all in vain;
- Without the flower we looked to find,
- Each year springs, blooms, and dies again.
- Bowed down with our unanswered prayers,
- Our face averted from our past,
- We watch each year grow green, and cry,
- ‘Surely this brings our flower at last!’
- Failure on failure! What! tired out?
- Too tired to live? Ah, dare you die
- When this new year may bud and bear
- Your longed‐for flower of Liberty?
