MORTAL:
“The night is cold, the hour is late, the world is bleak and drear;
Who is it knocking at my door?”
THE NEW YEAR:
“I am Good Cheer.”
MORTAL:
“Your voice is strange; I know you not; in shadows dark I grope.
What seek you here?”
THE NEW YEAR:
“Friend, let me in; my name is Hope.”
MORTAL:
“And mine is Failure; you but mock the life you seek to bless. Pass on.”
THE NEW YEAR:
“Nay, open wide the door; I am Success.”
MORTAL:
“But I am ill and spent with pain; too late has come your wealth. I cannot use it.”
THE NEW YEAR:
“Listen, friend; I am Good Health.”
MORTAL:
“Now, wide I fling my door. Come in, and your fair statements prove.”
THE NEW YEAR:
“But you must open, too, your heart, for I am Love.”
Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850 – 1919)
Portrait of Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Frontispiece from her book of poems “Three Women”