The First Day of January, 1863

This poem was written by Ellen Murray, a co-founder of the Penn School on St. Helena Island in South Carolina. The poem was originally published in the National Anti-Slavery Standard on December 27, 1862.

The song of New Year for this land of ours!
A New Year song! What shall it be? A dirge
For young, proud forms that lie o’erwhelmed and wrecked
Beneath the whirl of tossing battle-surge?
A waile for orphans, holding little hands,
All vainly, for a father’s New Year’s touch?
For girls, who yielded up their joy of life,
Counting the sacrifice not overmuch?

Shall it be such, or none? The time is past
Of thanks for what the old year to us brought,A
nd hopes of blessings certainly to come,
Such now were mockery. So deeply fraught
With grief and anguish has this old year been,
So sure are we of sorrow yet to be,
That not a lip in all our country’s bounds
Forgets in song its moan of misery.

A dirge? What! When the angel of the sun
Looks out this morning on a country free,
And fresh winds wake, like silver trumpet-tones,
To sing the anthem of the jubliee?
No dirge! No dirge! From throne and altar-stair
Our martyrs bless their country and their God,
And joy to think, for such consummate gain
Their blood, like sunrise, dyed their country’s sod.

They have no dirge, who dark eyes watch this morn,
As Persians watch adoringly the sun,
Their years of darkness and despairing past,
Their new, fresh life of liberty begun.
E'en those, who, driven from the line of coast,
Crowd inland rice swamps, cannot wail to-day;
A thought of hope is in each Northern wind,
“The God of Moses doth not fail,” they say.

We will not mourn, we cannot. God, our God,
Is smiling down upon His own, redeemed
One part from sin, and one from slavery;
And if we had not smiled, it might have seemed
Rebellion. Though he lead us through a way
Darker than we had chosen, if the end
Be His high glory and our fellows’ good,
Let thankful songs to His white throne ascend.

A song of gladness! For our country saved,
Our country true, self-sacrificing, free!
A song of triumph! for the great deed done
To guide and sanctify our destiny.
A song like Miriam’s! for the broken chain,
The freedmen’s huts, the lands the freedmen till.
A psalm like David’s! for our Lord hath kept
His promise to His earth, and reigneth still.
Ellen Murray