, 1922-12-28

Brims over with the silv'ry radiance.
Across Tahosa Valley looms Longs Peak,
king of the Rockies" with its tow'ring crown
Atop its monstrous, dark, grim preciplce
A-glitter in the flood of silver light.
Behind me rise The Twins to UNDERLINE,
Recumhent in silhouette as If carved
BY the chisel of the Master Sculptor
A part and parcel of a perfect whole
Planned by the Master Architect himself.
Perfected through the ages by His will
That with sheer beauty makes the heart to ache.
The hours pass on. The moon sinks and is gone.
Myriad stars that blaze like beacon fires
Take up the watch the weary moon has quit.
The Old Year passes out comes in the New
Without n sound, a token or a sign.
There is no hint of life. Can it be true
The sun will shine again and dry come back
And life leap in the glad green spring once more
And Time grant unto us another year,
And now is staged with ceremonious pomp
The recurrent miracle of the dawn
In setting worthy of the Masters art,
With glories worthy of the glad New Year:
Behind The Sisters grows a pearly glow;
The Kings o'ertopping crown glows ruby red;
L~ow-lying clouds in The Pass to the south
Are shot with gold the skyline of the pines
Against their glory stands raggedly out.
The rim of a great golden disk thrusts up
Above the silhouetted Sisters crest.
Deer, Meadow, Meeker, Lady Washington.
bullltf LILY anu ESTES tune cudHBt white
For rose tlnts. Wooded slopes dofr black for
green.
The Sisters. ms the sun mounts In the sky,
Call back their shadows from the Valley floor.
A breeze wakes up and dances forth to help
The trees shake off their ~burdning robes of white.
A crested jay fits In a shelt'rlng pine.
A snowshoe rabbit goes sedately past
And makes the first mark on the untrncked snow.
Across Tahosa Valley smoke goes up
Blre chimney-smoke that tells of kindled hearth,
With family oSfir and life and love
And there stands Longs-unchanged, unchange-
able.
Now l know glad spring shall come again.
SUMNER time, harvest time, another year.
And so is born to us this glad New Year,
Nineteen Twenty-three Ammo Dominl-
sin tire Year of Our Lord the Son of God,
VINO taught man. do as we would be done by"
who died upon the cross to save mankind.
There is an old saying and wise: Let the dend
past bury its dead" Its wisdom. however. lies
largely in what 1t really means rather than In what
It actually says. For burial does not mean both
burying and forgetting. And II should not. What
the adage means Is this:
lets turn over n new leaf on New Years day,
1923. and try to make a better looking page than
we did In 1927"
There is snld to be mo new thing under the
sun" Certain II Is that we are digging up records
nowadays that show human nature to have been
about the same In 1900 b.. c. that II Is now. SO
doubtless man has been making New Years reso-
tutions ever since there was any New Years day.
And doubtless he has been breaking them just as
regularly. And doubtless the cynlcs and the pes
simIsts and the professional jokers have been
laughing over the performance through the ages.
Nevertheless, this recurring New Years per.
Torrance Is a lot more than merely the material
for a Jest. In fact. 1t Is one of the things that
keeps alive the faith In human nature and the
hope that the world Is progressing year by year
toward better things.
There are, OF course, many foolish people who
i've only TO eat. drink and be merry. And there
are the predatory ones. who take what they want
If they can get II. But most people believe In
\ future life and are always trying, often vaguely
and half-unconsciously TO live the kind of n life
that seems TO them ht TO survive. Hence their
New Years resolutions. Many a man in his heart
On New Years day would be. with Robert Brown
ing,