The Works of James M. Whitfield: America and Other Writings by a Nineteenth-Century African American Poet

NEW YEAR’S HYMN

50 America and Other Poems NEW YEAR’S HYMN ANOTHER year, another year, Unfolds its page of hope and fear! Where, at its close, shall we appear Who now are congregated here. Perhaps, with those now passed away, We may be laid deep in the earth; Perchance, ’mid foreign scenes, we may Forget the land that gave us birth. Perhaps upon the stormy seas, Where raging billows wildly roll, The terrors of despair may seize Upon the dark and guilty soil. But wheresoe’er our footsteps tend, ’Mid tropic sands, or polar snow, May we remember that great Friend Who guards us wheresoe’er we go. Whose mighty hand hath been our stay Through scenes of trouble, doubt and fear, And suffered us, poor worms of clay, To enter on another year. ...