JANUARY.

JANUARY.

Firstly thou, churl son of Janus,
Rough for cold, in drugget clad,
Com'st with rack and rheum to pain us;
Firstly thou, churl son of Fanus.

Caverned now is old Sylvanus;

Numb and chill are maid and lad.

HENRY AUSTIN DOBSON.

The Masque of the Months.

JANUARY.

14

JANUARY:

JANUS am I; oldest of potentates;

Forward I look, and backward, and below

I count, as god of years and gates,

The years that through my portals come and go.

I block the roads, and drift the fields with snow;
I chase the wild-fowl from the frozen fen;
My frosts congeal the rivers in their flow,
My fires light up the hearths and hearts of men.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW,
The Poet's Calendar.

THE OLD YEAR AND THE NEW.

THE years have linings just as goblets do:
The old year is the lining of the new,
Filled with the wine of precious memories,
The golden was doth line the silver is.

CHARLOTTE FISKE BATES.

2

THE OLD YEAR OUT.

THE OLD YEAR OUT AND THE NEW
YEAR IN.

RING then, ring loudly, merry midnight bells,
Peal the new lord of days blithe welcoming,
What though your sweet-scaled notes be also knells,

Be knells the while for the old fallen king

Resting his dying head.upon the snow? Ring out the old year, for the new year ring.

Hark! hark! the music of the merry chime !

The King is dead! God's blessing on the Ki
Welcome with gladness this new King of Time

Oh merry midnight bells, ring brithely, ring,
Wake with your breathless peal the startled night,
High in your belfry in mad frolic swing.

Laugh out again, sweet music and delight,

In happy homes a moment hushed to hear The midnight strokes boom out the old year's flight.

See, he is gone for ever, the old year,

Why should we vex our heart with sad farewells? Let the dead sleep, bare not his shrouded bier.

Ring on, ring yet more gladly, merry bells,

Peal the new lord of days glad welcoming,What though your happy chimes be also knells? MRS. AUGUSTA [DAVIES] WEBSTER.

A NEW YEAR'S WISH.

3

TO NEW YEAR'S DAY.

IF eagles shifting but their bills, have made
Their youth return, so years seem retrograde;
And if 't be true, that every change of skin
To th' creeping brood, doth a new age begin:
Or whilst th' eleven months like food appear
To satiate the hungry Fanivere.

Why should not man this riddle too unfold,
And be renewed by putting off the old?

MILDMAY FANE,

Second Earl of Westmoreland.

A NEW YEAR'S WISH.

ACROSS the solemn spaces of the years

How sweet to hear the voices that we knew When fewer hearts were sad and more were true, And life had less of sorrows than of tears! Then take we gladder hope to us again, For who shall say that all our past is vain, While one sweet soul esteems our little worth, And singles us from all the good of earth For kindly greeting as the days go by? O friend of mine, whose rare fidelity

Stands sentinel at Friendship's holy shrine, Lest care and change dissever souls at one, The Lord keep watch between us, mine and thine,

Till night is gone and golden dawn begun!

MRS. KATHARINe Margaret [Brownlee] ShERWOOD.