<h2><SPAN name="page137"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>A NEW YEAR’S MESSAGE</h2>
<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">To Joseph
Mazzini</span></p>
<blockquote><p>Send the stars light, but send not love to me.</p>
<p style="text-align: right"><i>Shelley</i>.</p>
</blockquote>
<h3>I</h3>
<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Out</span> of the dawning
heavens that hear<br/>
Young wings and feet of the new year<br/>
Move through their twilight, and shed round<br/>
Soft showers of sound,<br/>
Soothing the season with sweet rain,<br/>
If greeting come to make me fain,<br/>
What is it I can send again?</p>
<h3>2</h3>
<p class="poetry">I know not if the year shall send<br/>
Tidings to usward as a friend,<br/>
And salutation, and such things<br/>
Bear on his wings<br/>
As the soul turns and thirsts unto<br/>
With hungering eyes and lips that sue<br/>
For that sweet food which makes all new.</p>
<h3>3</h3>
<p class="poetry">I know not if his light shall be<br/>
Darkness, or else light verily:<br/>
<SPAN name="page138"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>I know
but that it will not part<br/>
Heart’s faith from heart,<br/>
Truth from the trust in truth, nor hope<br/>
From sight of days unscaled that ope<br/>
Beyond one poor year’s horoscope.</p>
<h3>4</h3>
<p class="poetry">That faith in love which love’s self
gives,<br/>
O master of my spirit, lives,<br/>
Having in presence unremoved<br/>
Thine head beloved,<br/>
The shadow of thee, the semitone<br/>
Of thy voice heard at heart and known,<br/>
The light of thee not set nor flown.</p>
<h3>5</h3>
<p class="poetry">Seas, lands, and hours, can these divide<br/>
Love from love’s service, side from side,<br/>
Though no sound pass nor breath be heard<br/>
Of one good word?<br/>
To send back words of trust to thee<br/>
Were to send wings to love, when he<br/>
With his own strong wings covers me.</p>
<h3>6</h3>
<p class="poetry">Who shall teach singing to the spheres,<br/>
Or motion to the flight of years?<br/>
Let soul with soul keep hand in hand<br/>
And understand,<br/>
As in one same abiding-place<br/>
We keep one watch for one same face<br/>
To rise in some short sacred space.</p>
<h3><SPAN name="page139"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>7</h3>
<p class="poetry">And all space midway is but nought<br/>
To keep true heart from faithful thought,<br/>
As under twilight stars we wait<br/>
By Time’s shut gate<br/>
Till the slow soundless hinges turn,<br/>
And through the depth of years that yearn<br/>
The face of the Republic burn.</p>
<p>1870.</p>
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