Upon the threshold of another year
      We stand again.
We know not what of gladness and good cheer,
      Of grief or pain
May visit us while journeying to its close.
      In this we rest,
God dealeth out in wisdom what He knows
      For us is best.

Deep cradled in the fringed mow to lie
And feel the rhythmic flux of life sweep by,
This is to know the easy heaven that waits
Before our timidly-embattled gates:
To show the exultant leap and thrust of thing
Outward toward perfection, in the heart
Of every bud to see the folded wings,
Discern the patient whole in every part.

All beautiful the march of days,
   As seasons come and go;
The hand that shaped the rose hath wrought
   The crystal of the snow;
Hath sent the hoary frost of heaven,
   The flowing waters sealed,
And laid a silent loveliness
   On hill, and wood, and field.

O’er white expanses sparkling pure
   The radiant morns unfold;
The solemn splendours of the night
   Burn brighter through the cold:
Life mounts in every throbbing vein,
   Love deepens round the hearth,
And clearer sounds the angel-hymn,
   “Good will to men on earth.”

O Thou from whose unfathomed law
   The year in beauty flows,
Thyself the vision passing by
   In crystal and in rose:
Day unto day doth utter speech,
   And night to night proclaim,
In everlasting words of light,
   The wonder of Thy Name.

Oh, I can hear you, God, above the cry
                  Of the tossing trees—
Rolling your windy tides across the sky,
   And splashing your silver seas
                     Over the pine,
                  To the water-line
                     Of the moon.
            Oh, I can hear you, God,
Above the wail of the lonely loon—
When the pine-tops pitch and nod—
            Chanting your melodies
Of ghostly waterfalls and avalanches,
Washing your wind among the branches
   To make them pure and white.
Wash over me, God, with your piney breeze,
   And your moon’s wet-silver pool;
Wash over me, God, with your wind and night,
            And leave me clean and cool.

Not so in haste, my heart!
Have faith in God and wait;
Although He linger long,
He never comes too late.

He never cometh late;
He knoweth what is best;
Vex not thyself in vain;
Until He cometh, rest.

Until He cometh, rest,
Nor grudge the hours that roll;
The feet that wait for God
Are soonest at the goal;

Are soonest at the goal
That is not gained by speed;
Then hold Thee still, my heart,
For I shall wait His lead.

How burn the stars unchanging in the midnight skies,
   As on the earth the old year dies!
Like leaves before the storm, so haste our lives away;
   Eternal God, to Thee we pray.

For all Thy mercies past we lift our hearts in praise,
   Thy care that crowned our fleeting days;
Our follies and our sins, O Lord, remember not,
   Lost hours when we Thy love forgot.

From age to age Thy love endures; Thou art our God.
   Send now Thy flaming truth abroad,
That with the New Year’s dawning right may conquer wrong
   Grief yield to joy, and tears to song!

Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse p. 400
ed. D. H. S. Nicholson and A. H. E. Lee