AN ADDRESS 
TO 
THE OLD YEAR. 
BY THE AUTHOR OF “ THE MUMMY.” 
Suave of departed joys! where is’t thou ’rt flown ? 
Borne on the winds, I hear thy hollow moan. 
Say, does remorse in thy sad bosom rise, 
That thus the blast comes leaded with thy sighs? 
Art thou lamenting for the young and brave, 
Gay at thy dawn, now mouldering in the grave? 
Or dost thou grieve to find thy reign is o’er, 
And thou must fly as years have fled before? 
O’er thee Oblivion spreads her gloomy pall, 
And thou must share the common fate.of all.— 
As spirits vanish at the break of day, 
When morning dawns, thy being fades away ; 
Thy infant offspring breaking threugh the gloom, 
Springs like a Phoenix from its parent’s tomb :— 
Another day !—another year is born !— 
Another moment from the future torn! 
New prospects rise, and Nature seems to bring, 
E’en to the mind, a renovated Spring ; 
The sun of Hope shines brightening o’er our lot, 
And all our former sorrows are forgot ; 
Year after year, time cheats us as it flies, 
And fairy visions dance before our eyes ; 
‘Lill, when at last, life lingers to its close, 
And we—amongst the former dead repose ; 
Fading like thee, our very names shall die, 
And buried ’midst the dust of ages lie. 
The light of Virtue, glistening through the gloom, 
Alone shall shed a halo round the tomb ! 
London: Printed by Samuel Bentley, Dorsct-street, Fleet-street. 
