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James Whitcomb Riley - Song Of The New Year
Work rating: Low

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."
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