[Editor: A poem by “Dryblower” Murphy, published in The Sunday Times (Perth, WA), 1 January 1939.]
When New Year’s Day Comes Round
(By Dryblower.)
Time registers another notch
On his eternal track.
His cohorts keep his ward and watch
In castle and in shack.
Since out of chaos came his birth,
And far its fragments flung,
His pendulums around the earth
Unerringly have swung.
He mapped the moon and mighty stars
And set them on their course;
He synchronised the flight of Mars
By fearful, unseen force.
His silent footsteps measure off
Our grasping and our greed.
Whene’er we emile, whene’er we scoff,
We fail or we succeed.
The worldly wound for us he heals,
He palliates our woes,
And ’mid a myriad temple peals
A New Year comes and goes.
Time measures off the days and years
Of our appointed plan,
The joys and sorrows, hopes and fears
Of mercenary man.
The wasted hours, the ill-spent day,
The minutes spent in spite
Come not on laggard feet to stay,
By golden day or night.
Useless to cry in prose and verse
As some life ebbs away,
“O God, put back Thy Universe
And give me yesterday!”
The blow once struck, the word once spoke
Recalled can never be,
No sophistry can e’er revoke
The slander once set free.
Measure with Time your stalwart feet
Ere shadows on you close.
Within your heart be glad to greet
The Year that comes and goes.
The steadfast friends of life are few,
Conserve them while you can,
Remember unto me and you
God’s noblest work’s a man.
Let the New Year unlock the door
Of recollection sweet,
And you were as you were of yore,
Devoid of dull deceit.
Look straight into my eyes my friend
And take my trusting hand,
Ours be the bond that never ends,
The bond the years have spanned.
Life seems so lingering and so long
As we walked in its ways.
The music of our souls a song
That echoes down the days.
When its first beams its splendor spill
On down-clouds dull and grey,
Set your life’s standards higher still
When comes each New Year’s Day!
Source:
The Sunday Times (Perth, WA), 1 January 1939, p. 20
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