Millennium bells are set to chime
The triumphal march of Father Time
Two thousand years incredibly unfurled
In the recent history of the world
Which seems a time to celebrate
The glory of the human state.

Millennium shirts, millennium cars
Are meant to raise you to the stars
It may be folly for the wise
But it’s the advertiser’s paradise
Parading hordes of trivia
As treasures of millennia.

The affluent make fervid plans
From Australia to the Andamans
To welcome the sun’s first rays
Setting on two millennia’s ways
While others dread the coming day
Of unpredictable Y2K.

Piercing the festive air
Are pervasive cries of despair
The doomed ones whom Time forgot
And abandoned to a wretched lot
Some by Mother Nature seemingly disowned
By earthquake, draught, flood and cyclone.

As you sip champagne and vintage wine
And the band strikes up on Auld Lang Syne
While the new millennium seemingly takes birth
Feel a kinship with all the earth
So that the coming years will be
A partnership in sensitivity…