Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1922-12-28
By JOHN DICKINSON SHERMAN

by JOHN DlChlNSON SdEIC11bA4N
!. :. :: !: ::
- YER my cabin on Twin Sisters slope
I'D 90 In the Rocky Mountain National Park
M Rides the December moon in blue
black sky
$500 To light the Old Year out, the New
Year in.
~ Tahosa-'Valley in the Mountain
W vi All trimmed about with lofty snow
clad. peaks,
Is dazzling with new-fallen snow; It's
cup
Brinns over with the silvry radiance.
Across Tahosa Valley looms Longs Peak,
eIIng of the Rockies" with its tow'ring crown
Atop its monstrous, dark grim precipice
A-glitter in the food of silver light.
Behind me rise The Twins to timberline,
Becumbent 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 a sound token or a sign.
There is no hint of life. Can it be true
The will shine again and day 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 pearly glow;
The Kings o'ertopping crown glows ruby red;
Low-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,
Battle Lily and Estes Cone change white
For rose tints Wooded slopes dof black for
green.
The Sisters, as 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 burd'ning robes of white
a crested jay fits in a sheltring pine
A snowshoe rabbit goes sedately past
And makes the first mark the untracked snow
Across Tahosa Valley smoke goes up
Blue chimney-smoke that tells of kindled hearth
With family astir and life and love!
And there stands Longs-unchanged, unchange
able!
Now know glad spring shall come again,
Summer time, harvest time, another year.
And so is born to us this glad New Year,
Nineieen Twenty-three Ammo Domini-
"In she Year Of Our Lord" the Son of God,
Who haaght man, "Do as We would be done by"
Thagg is an old saying and wise: LET the dead
past aHry it's dead! It's wisdom, however, lies
targets in what it really rather than in what
it actually says For burial does not mean both
burynR and forgetting. And it should not What
the ad&ge means is this:
let's turn over new leaf on New Years day.
1923, ARD try to make a better looking page than
we did Ia 1925"
There is said to be mo new thing under the
sun" Cectain it is that are digging up records
nowadays that show human nature to have been
about the same in 1000 B. c. that it is now So
doubtless suan has been making New Years reso-
buttons ever since there was any New Years day.
And doubtless he has been breaking them just as
regularly. And doubtless the cynics and the pes
gimists ana the professional jokers have been
laughing over the performance through the ages.
Nevertheless this recurring New Years per-
Torrance is lot more than merely the material
for Jest In fact, it 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
live only to eat, drink and be merry. And there
are the predatory ones, who take what they want
If they can get it. But most people believe in
a future life and are always trying, often vaguely
and half-unconsciOusly, TO live the kind of life
that seems to them fit to survive. Hence their
New Years resolutions. Many a man in his heart
Ing