The writings of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume 3.
John Greenleaf Whittier, Ed.

Once more across thy sleepless eye
     The semblance of a smile has passed:
The year departing leaves more nigh
     Time's fearfullest and last.

Oh, in that dying year hath been
     The sum of all since time began;
The birth and death, the joy and pain,
     Of Nature and of Man.

Spring, with her change of sun and shower,
     And streams released from Winter's chain,
And bursting bud, and opening flower,
     And greenly growing grain;

And Summer's shade, and sunshine warm,
     And rainbows o'er her hill-tops bowed,
And voices in her rising storm;
     God speaking from His cloud!

And Autumn's fruits and clustering sheaves,
     And soft, warm days of golden light,
The glory of her forest leaves,
     And harvest-moon at night;

And Winter with her leafless grove,
     And prisoned stream, and drifting snow,
The brilliance of her heaven above
     And of her earth below: