As the elder year passes its staff
To the infant so recently born
One pauses to reflect
And recollect
The days and people
Who've filled our hours
With moments both proud and poor,
And seconds that rang and died.
We visit again
Those friends who've passed
In either life or death,
And quietly, privately,
Bid them a fond farewell
As they walk away
On paths separate from our own;
And as the New Year appears before us,
Its vastness likened to a blank page,
Both forbidding
And full of promise,
We ask ourselves if
This will be the year
To end all years,
Or the birth of an age
Of wisdom and enlightenment?
What will it bring
As its army of days
Come marching past?
And what would we
Bring to it?