[049]

December 30.

Retrospect.

We are unprofitable sevrants.--Luke xvii. 10.

     I never glanced behind to know
If I had kept my primal light from wane,
And thus insensibly am--what I am.
Browning.

Sin, not till it is left, will duly sinful seem;
A man must waken first, ere he can tell his dream.
Trench.

Comfort me not!--for if aught be worse than failure from over-stress
Of a life's prime purpse, it is to sit down content with a little success.
Lytton.

Let us look back on life:--was any change,
Any now blest experience, but at first
A pang, remorse-like, shot to the inmost seats
Of moral being?
Clough.

Too true it is, my time of power was spent
In idly watering weeds of casual growth,--
That wasted energy to desperate sloth
Declined, and fond self-seeking discontent,--
Too true it is that, knowing now my state,
I weakly mourn the sin I ought to hate,
Nor love the law I yet would fain obey;
But true is is, above all law and fate
Is Faith, abiding the appointed day.
H. Coleridge.

In doing is this knowledge won,
To see what yet remains undone.
   With this our pride repress,
And give us grace, a growing store,
That day by day we may do more
   And may esteem it less.
Trench.

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[050]

December 30. The Dying Years.

Retrospect.

What I have written, I have written.--John xix. 22.
That which is crooked cannot be made straight, and that which is wanting

cannot be numbered. Eccles. i. 15.

The year departs! a blessing on its head!
We mourn not for it, for it is not dead:
Dead? What is that? A word to joy unknown,
Which love abhors, and faith will never own.
   The passing breezes gone as soon as felt,
The flakes of snow that in the soft air melt,
The smile that sinks into a maiden's eye,
They come, thay go, they change, they do not die.
So the Old Year--that fond and formal name--
Is with us yet,--another and the same.
   And are the thoughts that ever more are fleeing,
The moments that make up our being's being,
The silent workings of unconscious love
Or the dull hate which clings and will not move,
Are these less vital than the wave or wind
Or snow that melts and leaves no trace behind?
H. Coleridge.

To forget is not to be restored;
To lose with time the sense of what we did
Cancels not what we did; what's done remains!
Clough.

Now, it is gone. Our brief hours travel post,
Each with its thought or deed, its Why or How,
But know, each parting hour gives up a ghost
To dwell within thee--an eternal Now!
S.T. Coleridge.

                    Alas! alas!
Whatever hath been written shall remain,
Nor be erased nor written o'er again;
The Unwritten only still belongs to thee,
Take heed and ponder well what that shall be!
Longfellow.

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[051]

Watch Night.

Hitherto hath the Lord helpe us.--1 Samuel vii. 12.

Mark how there still has run, enwoven from above,
Thro' thy life's darkest woof, the golden thread of love.
Trench.

I have always had one lode-star; now,
As I look back, I see that I have wasted
Or progressed as I looked towards that star--
A need, a trust, a yearning after God.
Browning.

Have I laid by from summer hours
Ripe fruits as well as leaves and flowers?
Hath my past year a growth to harden,
As well as fewer sins to pardon?
Is God in all things more and more
A king within me than before?
Faber.

What hath been bringeth what shall be, and is,
     Worse--better--last for first and first for last;
The Angels in the Heavens of Gladness reap
          Fruits of a holy past!
E. Arnold.

The Past is something, but the Present more;
Will it not, too, be past? Nor fail withal
To recognise the Future in your hopes;
Unite them in your manhood, each and all,
Nor mutilate the perfectness of life!--
You can remember; you can also hope.
Clough.

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