On December 31st

Now gone as if it never was,

and slipped all by the stream,

lost like sighs of hidden breath

or shadowed faces in a dream.

But though I’d hold today so fast,

and all the days long gone,

the leaves are fallen, birds are flown,

and time keeps passing on.

Remember how it was, my friend,

though looking back may ache,

at all we may have been or lost,

enough the heart could break.

So sweet a pain in memory,

such longing to return,

and yet tomorrow calls us on,

to be, to die, to burn.

And now’s the time for memory,

and through her seas to row,

a moment now for memory,

before we have to go.

Though many years we’ve wandered yet,

and come so far from home,

where we’ve got friends and memory,

we’re never quite alone.

With all that’s lost through all the years,

with scars we never show,

hold close and trace the memory,

and see tomorrow grow.