Lawrence Hall
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https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                            We’ll Write a New Idyll This Year

                The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
                And God fulfils himself in many ways

             -Idylls of the King, “The Passing of Arthur,” 8-9

Janus faces both ways, and so do we
A last, lingering look at the year that was
And then a turn to the year we must meet
Marching to it through Janus Pater’s doors

We will most remember about the past
Our friends whose pilgrimages came to their ends
We joy in the remembrance of their happiness
Their stories and songs, their unfailing kindness

Janus faces both ways, and so do we;    
But now our friends, our happy friends, they see
Light


                 And the new sun rose bringing the new year

                       -Idylls, “The Passing of Arthur,” 469

"The old order changeth, yielding place to new” 1

On that cold night Sir Bedivere looked long
Into the dawnlight where three Queens gold-crowned 2
With Arthur passed at last into the West
And the sun rose, but not upon the King

Then in the silence of the raw new year
A masterless knight turned unto the hills
And after wanderings there took the cowl
And among new faces told the beads of worlds

For us – our old year too is someone’s new
With quiet grace and faith we pass from view


1 This line appears both in “The Coming of Arthur” and in “The Passing of Arthur” in Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, framing the arcing narrative.

2 The three Queens, too, appear in “The Coming of Arthur” and in “The Passing of Arthur.”  They are perhaps symbols of faith, hope, and charity from 1 Corinthians.