"Wouldst thou be shrived, Old Year? Thou subtle sentence of delusive Time, Framed but to deepen all the mystery Of Life's great purpose! Come, confess the crime, And man's Divinity shall date from thee! "Speak to my soul, Old Year; Let but a star leave its bright eminence In thy death-struggle, if this deathless Soul Holds its own destiny and recompense In the grand mast'ry of a GOD'S control! "No sound, no sign from thee? And must I live, not knowing why I live, Whilst Thou and years to come pass by me here With faces hid, refusing still to give The one poor word that bids me cease to fear? "That word, I charge thee, speak! Quick! for the moments tremble on the verge Of the black chasm where lurks the midnight spell, And solemn winds already chant thy dirge-- Give Earth its Heaven, or Hell a deeper Hell! "Speak! or I curse thee here! I'll call it YEA if but a withered twig, Tossed by the wind, falls rattling on the roof; I'll call it YEA, if e'en a shutter creak, Breathe but on me, and it shall stand for proof! "Too late! The midnight bell-- The crawling shadow at its witching flood, With the deep gloom of the Beyond is wed, And I, unanswered, sit within and brood, And thou, Old Year, art silent--Thou art DEAD!" When the chaplain finished his reading, my boy, I told him that he must excuse the party for going to sleep, as they were really very tired. On New Year's day, my boy, the General of the Mackerel Brigade desired me to make a few calls with him; and appeared at my lodgings in a confirmed state of kid gloves, which he bought for the express purpose of making a joke. "A happy New Year to you, my Duke of Wellington," says I. "You look as frisky as a spring lamb." Immediately a look of intense meaning came over his Corinthian face, and he remarked, with awful solemnity: "Thunder! you might better call me a goat, my Prushian blue, seeing that I've got a couple of kids on hand just now." The joke was a good article in the glove line, my boy, and I don't think that the general had been studying over it more than four hours before we met. We made our first call at a house where the ladies were covered with smiles as with a garment; and remarked that the day was fine. The general smiled in return, until his profile reminded me of a cracked tea-pot; and says he: "Ladies, allow me to tender the compliments of the season. In this wine," says he, "which I hold in my hand, I behold the roses of your cheeks when you blush, and the sparkle of your eyes when you laugh. Let us hope that another New Year will find our unhappy country free from her enemies, and the curse of African slavery blotted out of the map." I whispered to the general that slavery wasn't on the map at all; and he confidentially informed me, that I be dam.