Song Of The New Year

I heard the bells at midnight         Ring in the dawning year;     And above the clanging chorus         Of the song, I seemed to hear     A choir of mystic voices         Flinging echoes, ringing clear,     From a band of angels winging         Through the haunted atmosphere:             "Ring out the shame and sorrow,                 And the misery and sin,             That the dawning of the morrow                 May in peace be ushered in."     And I thought of all the trials         The departed years had cost,     And the blooming hopes and pleasures         That are withered now and lost;     And with joy I drank the music         Stealing o'er the feeling there     As the spirit song came pealing         On the silence everywhere:             "Ring out the shame and sorrow,                 And the misery and sin,             That the dawning of the morrow                 May in peace be ushered in."     And I listened as a lover         To an utterance that flows     In syllables like dewdrops         From the red lips of a rose,     Till the anthem, fainter growing,         Climbing higher, chiming on     Up the rounds of happy rhyming,         Slowly vanished in the dawn:             "Ring out the shame and sorrow,                 And the misery and sin,             That the dawning of the morrow                 May in peace be ushered in."     Then I raised my eyes to Heaven,         And with trembling lips I pled     For a blessing for the living         And a pardon for the dead;     And like a ghost of music         Slowly whispered - lowly sung -     Came the echo pure and holy         In the happy angel tongue:             "Ring out the shame and sorrow,                 And the misery and sin,             And the dawn of every morrow                 Will in peace be ushered in."