THE DYING YEAR.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 235, 31 December 1887, Page 3

THE DYING YEAR.

The Old Year is a-dying— peace, bo still ! His life behind him lies, of good and ill. He ponders o'er his actions, great and small, And prays, " O God, with mercy judge them all!' He thinks of all his kindred passed away ; He sees another coming with tho day. He crios, " New Year! take warning of the past. Then shall thou not make mourning at the last. "I see what glittering mirage led me wrong ; I sc« the deadly weakness of the strong ; "I see how I most wrongly helped the Right, And where I let Wrong march on in its might ; "I see where Right and Wrong together met, And how, through want of faith. Wrong triumphs yet ; " I soe where Reason, losing all control Of guiding rein, gare up its very soul. "I hear tho gathered evils of the years Shouting their grim defiance in my ears— " But I can still look onward without fear, For many wrongs are dying with me here. " All evil lingers, hut must pass away— The good that each year does lives on for aye ; "And that which, great or small, by thee is done, Thou hast so much of good from evil won. " Know that each year, each soul, can speed the day When evil shall for ever pass away ; " So with tho fervour of thy lusty youth, Strike for the holy cause of Right and Truth. "Then when, like me, thou shalt bo dying here* Thou, too, canst still look onward without fear "That whon the Record of the Years is told. It shall be written : * Thou thy birth-right sold ! ' •

' " A little fellow who was at a neighbour's house about noon the other day, watched the preparations for dinner with great interest, but when asked to stay and eat something he - promptly refused. 4l Why, yes, Johnnie, you had better stay," said the lady. *' I can't." " Why can't you." "Well, 'cause," said the little fellow, " mamma said I mus'n't unless you ask me three times. " They invited him twice more right off. During Sheridan's last illness, the medical attendants, apprehending that they would be obliged to perform an operation origin, asked him "if he had ever undergone one." " Never/ replied Sheridan, "except when sitting for my picture, or having my Kair cwh"