Poems (Kimball)/The Waning Year

by Harriet McEwen Kimball

THE WANING YEAR.

THE year is waning, waning
 I feel its close draw near;
A murmur of complaining
 In all earth's sounds I hear,
That saith, The year is waning;
 And sighs, O waning year!

All garnered is its glory,
 Its fulness and its might;
The ghostly fields lie hoary
 Seen in the early light;
The threads of summer's story
 Are lost to touch and sight.

But memories grow dearer
 When falls the latest leaf;
And many things grow clearer
 To eyes made dim by grief;
And hidden things seem nearer
 Because the days are brief.

The wealth we must surrender
 Of leafage, bloom, and light,
Reveals the larger splendor
 And grandeur of the night;
And worship that we render
 Seems more in God's own sight.

The heavens laid bare above us
 In majesty untold,
Show forth how He doth love us,
 And would our lives infold;
How the dear Lord would have us
 Look up to Him more bold;

With simple, childlike boldness,
 That fears without a fear;
Nor stands far off in coldness,
 But draws unquestioning near;
A glad, forgetful boldness,
 That saith, Thy child is here!

Oh, as the years go by us,
 As year by year they wane,
And many trims try us,
 And everything is vain,
If God doth not deny us
 How can our hearts complain!

The fields will fade around us,
 Our beauty go away;
The darkness will surround us,
 But, oh! we need not stray;
And nothing shall confound us
 Who look to Him alway.

The year is waning, waning;
 I feel its close draw near;
And through the earth's complaining
 One blessed Voice I hear.
O happy, peaceful waning!
 How sweet the waning year!