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    Untitled Article

    After adverting to the interest which all mankind have in noting these measures of time , he thus apologizes for the serious tone of his thoughts :

    " Nature herself seeins , in Ji er wintry dress , To own the closing year ' s solemnity : Spring ' s blooming flowers , and summer ' s leanness , Ana autumn ' 8 richer charms , are ail thrown by ; I look abroad upon a starless sky ! Even the plaintive breeze sounds like the surge On Ocean ' s shore among those pine-trees high ; Or , sweeping o ' er that dark wall ' s ivied verge , It rings unto my thoughts the old year ' s mournful dirge

    Bear with me , gentle reader , if my vein Appear too serious;—sober , but not sad The thoughts and feelings which inspire my strain ; Could they with , mirthful words be fitl y clad ? The thoughtless call the melancholy mad , And deem joy dwells where laughter lights the brow ; But are the gay indeed the truly glad , Because they seem so ? O , be wiser thou ! Winter , which strips the vine , harms not the cypress bough . **

    Through several pages which follow , there are rebukes , impressive but not stern , solemn yet affectionate , of their indifference who can " turn unmoved a yet unopened page" of the strange book of life ; allusions to one whose knell was told , on the same day , by < 6 the very bells that now ring out the year ; " and an appeal to the teachings of Him who wore " grief ' s dark vesture , " when he came to guide mankind through sorrow to glory . He then strikes a livelier note of anticipation :

    " No more of sorrow . Think not I would fling O ' er brighter hearts than mine a sadd ' ning shade ; Or have them , by the aober truths I sing , Be causelessly dejected or dismayed . My task has been to show how heavenly aid May lighten earthly grief ; how flowers may cheer Even pale Sorrow ' s seeming thorny braid ; Ana how , amid December ' s tempests drear , Some solemn thoughts are due unto the parting year . My brighter task remains . " A New-Year ' s Eve 1 ' * * Tis not an hour to sink in cheerless gloom , To take of every hope a mournful leave , As if the earth were but a yawning tomb , And sighs and tears mortality ' s sole doom ; The Christian knows " to enjoy is to obey ;" All he most hopes or fears is in the womb Of vast eternity , and there alway His thoughts and feelings tend ; yet in his transient stay On this fair earth , he trul y < can enjoy , And he alone , its transitory good ; The bliss of worldlintfo ^ opn or late must cloy , For sensual is it ^ element and food ; The Christian ' s is W higher , nobler mood , It brings no riot , leaves no dark unrest , Its source is seen , its end is understood , Its light is that " calm sunshine of the breast /' Sanctioned by Reason ' s law , and by Religion blest .

    Untitled Article

    2 . New- Year ' s Eve *

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1829, page 2, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2568/page/2/