There's a book of poems called PANAMA PATCHWORK that I've had for more than 25 years, but never really looked at much. My copy is the 6th edition, 1920, of a collection first published around the turn of the 20th century. James Stanley Gilbert, edited by his friend Tracy Robinson. I found two poems appropriate to the passing of a terrible old year (De Profundis) and hope for the new year (A New Year's Rainbow). Here I offer them for your perusal:
De Profundis
Almighty Dispenser of good things and ill,
Purveyor
of foods that delight or annoy;
Thou that doth
every man's little cup fill
With draughts
to be drained of sorrow or joy:
Disgusted we
come to the Presence to-day,
Sans
flattering speeches of moment and pith,
But simply and
briefly and bluntly to say
That
we firmly believe that Job was a myth.
We are weary of
patience and all of that cant
About
love that can chasten love gasping for breath.
We are minus
that faith that can cheerfully rant
Of the
blessings of life in the presence of death.
We do not
believe in the silver that lines
The horse-blanket
clouds spread above us for weeks,
For we know all
the silver is safe in the mines
That
is not in the pockets of somebody's breeks.
We are weary of
funerals, weary of tears,
We are
weary of pushing unpushable walls;
We are weary of
leveling mountains of fears—
Of
building a Hope that instantly falls.
We have given to
Misery more than her half,
We have
rendered to Gloom more years than are his,
We have moped
long enough! Great God let us laugh
Before
we forget what a laugh is!
A
New Year's Rainbow
It rose this morning out of the sea,
Just
as the sun was peeping,
With
glances bright at the distant night
That
still in the West was sleeping.
The
rain that in the sombre dawn
Like
tears from the clouds was falling
Had
passed away while the god of day
The
darkness was enthralling.
And
it said, "Faint heart, take cheer!
Take cheer,
And
behold the sign and token
I
bring to thee from over the sea,
Of
the promise never broken!
The
grief I follow shall ne'er return:
Oh,
list to my joyous message!
Dost
thou not know that my gleaming bow
Of
a glad new year is presage?"
