Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, FOR THE NEW CENTURY: 3. AN ODE, by LEWIS MORRIS (1833-1907)


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

FOR THE NEW CENTURY: 3. AN ODE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Sound trumpets! Sound a peal for the new year
Last Line: Sound trumpets! Sound a peal for this the glad new year!
Subject(s): Holidays; New Year; Time


SOUND trumpets! sound a peal for the New York!
The great New Year which brings another Age;
The old, the weary Century at last
Closes its time-worn page;
Its hopes, its fears, its aspirations dead,
Deep buried in the irrevocable Past.
Close, close its eyes, cover its aged head.
It was an earnest Age; from early youth
It sought the face of Truth,
Not as its world-worn sire, it lived and died
Absorbed in scoffing doubt and scarcely human pride;
Never it scorned the toiling multitude,
But loved the general good,
And dowered the Race with many a gain sublime,
Grander than any of recorded Time.
Chant low its dirge awhile! then with loud voice
Acclaim the coming Sovereign and rejoice!
Relight hope's waning fires! be of good cheer!
Put vain regrets aside and chilling fear,
Sound trumpets! sound a peal for this the great New Year!

The centuries rise and pass,
They wane and cease to be,
Man's soul reflects as in a glass
Their fateful history.
From Egypt, Greece, and Rome
The long processions come,
From progress to decay
The pageants slowly pass, on their appointed way.
There seems no lasting gain, since all
Spring up awhile alike, and flower and fruit and fall,
But though the peoples fade yet Man remains.
Each with its added sum
Of treasure for the Race;
Still, still the long processions come,
Each brings its special gift of Wisdom, Strength, or Grace,
High pleasures, nobler pains.

Oh youngling Age! oh Child divine!
In whose clear eyes strange skies reflected shine,
Undimmed as yet by the dull mists of years,
Life's sad inevitable soil and stain
The doubts, the carking fears,
The joys that end in pain!
How shall a purblind gaze foretell
The secret of thy long course guarded well?
We who have lived with children at our knees
Know with what deep anxieties
We do forecast their future, and would fain
Keep it from blot and stain,
But yet, but yet too oft our care is vain!
And thine we cannot guess, nor if thy life
Shall sink in some tremendous strife,
The Armageddon of war-haunted days;
The dead Age which passed yesternight to rest
Was greater and more blest
Than all its sires, and earned a higher praise,
Yet from its youth even to its dying bed
Came sights and sounds of pain,
War vexed its hours, the martyrs' blood was shed,
And Moloch roared with thunder for his slain!

Oh new Age, may a happier lot be thine!
Through the swift cycles which shall bound thy life
Peace be thy lot, not strife
Pursue thy course divine.
Thine may it be to trace by paths untrod
Nature's dark secrets, only known to God,
Assert dominion over earth and air!
Bind thou the nations everywhere!
Till Space be lost and Time
And all the bars of Race and Speech and Creed
Sink and are merged indeed
In one pervading Unity sublime.
Nor aught survive of War's ill-omened brood,
Plague, Famine, Hatred, Blood.
Raise thou the peoples from their vile estate,
The light of Knowledge spread for small and great!
Free Woman's generous heart and subtle brain!
It shall not be in vain!

And then it shall be thine
To speak the gracious pitying word Divine
Of succour for the weak and trodden down;
From failing age to lift its crushing load
And speed it on its road;
Beside the sufferer's bed to stand
With wiser, healing hand;
And with a new-born civic sense
Rebuild the hovels where the poor to-day,
Hopeless, ill housed, and losing innocence,
Pine, body and soul, away.
Let a great band of workers come to be
Vowed each with each to wiser charity;
Raise thou the flower of Knowledge fair and sweet,
Not only forced amid Wealth's hothouse air,
But by the homely cot or crowded street,
Blossoming everywhere;
And wing the soul of Man,
The struggling soul, sightless so long and mute,
Scarce higher than the brute,
To what pure heights the enfranchised spirit can.
Reap thou, oh happy Age,
Thy glorious heritage.
Garner ripe sheaves of Science fully grown,
Which the wise Past hath sown;
The weird Power which the dead age dimly saw
Shall, subjected to Law,
Enrich thy life and bring unfailing Day,
And thro' the trackless air
Spread venturous pinions swift, for those who dare.
And do thou reinforce Man's feeble sight
Till the faint fires of night
Seem sister-worlds, whose hills and plains we know.
Tame thou at last the vast Titanic force
Born of our planet rushing on her course.
Wake thou the new powers unsuspected still,
Which sleeping wait thy will.
But more than all, oh happy Age, increase
Man's knowledge of God's will, and give him Peace,
Till he attain at last,
Spurning his baser Past,
To loftier spheres and far horizons vast.
Shall these things be? Alas! we cannot tell;
Whate'er Fate sends us, to have Faith is well.
Sound trumpets! sound a peal for this the glad New Year!





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