The current of destiny carries us along. None but a madman would swim against the stream, and none but a fool would exert himself to swim with it. The best way is to float quietly with the tide.

The mountain summits, thy expanding heart. Shall feel a kindred with that loftier world.

Even here do I behold / Thy steps, Almighty! — here, amidst the crowd, / Through the great city rolled, / With everlasting murmur deep and loud — / Choking the ways that wind / 'Mongst the proud piles, the work of humankind.

And when the hours of rest / Come, like a calm upon the mid-sea brine, / Hushing its billowy breast — / The quiet of that moment too is thine; / It breathes of him who keeps / The vast and helpless city while it sleeps.

Now they are gone, gone as thy setting blaze / Goes down the west, while night is pressing on, / And with them the old tale of better days, / And trophies of remembered power, are gone. / Yon field that gives the harvest, where the plough / Strikes the white bone, is all that tells their story now.

The stormy March is come at last / With wind, and cloud, and changing skies / I hear the rushing of the blast / That through the snowy valley flies.

Even while we sing, he smiles his last, / And leaves our sphere behind. / The good old year is with the past; / Oh be the new as kind! / Oh stay, oh stay, / One parting strain, and then away.

Stand here by my side and turn, I pray, / On the lake below thy gentle eyes; / The clouds hang over it, heavy and gray, / And dark and silent the water lies;

And when the hours of rest / Come, like a calm upon the mid-sea brine, / Hushing its billowy breast- / The quiet of the moment, too, is thine: / It breathes of him who keeps / The vast and helpless city, while it sleeps.

These struggling tides of life that seem In wayward, aimless course to tend, Are eddies of the mighty stream That rolls to its appointed end.