Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A NEW YEAR'S HYMN, by ANNIE MATHESON



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A NEW YEAR'S HYMN, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Consuming fire! Eternal love!
Last Line: Thy will be done!
Subject(s): Greetings; Holidays; New Year


CONSUMING Fire! Eternal Love!
Who grievest at Thy children's tears,
Yet, seeing further than the years,
A deeper deep, a height above,
A life nor time nor space can move,
Dost light unseen by shadows prove
And with a rainbow veil the sun—
Across the deluge guide the dove!
Soul of our life and of our love,
Thy will be done!

Years come and go and sweep away
The landmarks that we strove to make:
Through what they leave and what they take,
Build Thou the life that's more than they,
And fill with light of heavenly day
All we have built, now cold and grey
As cobwebs in the darkness spun:
Breathe health into our work, we pray:
Beyond the best we dream or say,
Thy will be done!

We trust not for ourselves alone
But for Thy boundless universe!—
Evolve the better from the worse;
Wake fountains in the flinty stone;
From fields the cruel scythe has mown
Draw fragrance: when the swallow's flown
And summer's past for every one,
By ripened harvest, slowly grown
From seed that patient hands have sown,
Thy will be done!

Not only through heroic pain
Divinely met and bravely borne,
Not only by the crown of thorn,
The loss that touches highest gain,
The fires that vanquish every stain
Till purest loveliness remain;
Not only by the battles won
Through deadly strife that seemed in vain,—
We pray not only in our pain,
Thy will be done;

But in the hour of joy supreme,
The gift of powers Thou dost control
When lightnings flash and thunders roll,
The hour diviner than our dream,
That heals our life and makes it whole,
Do Thou Thy will from pole to pole,
O Source of Joy, our Guide and Goal,
Above the shadow still our Sun!
In many a life's unlettered scroll,
Through bliss of body and of soul,
Thy will be done!





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