THE OLD BACHELOR'S NEW YEAR. 'Tis becoming bleak and bleaker And my hopes are waxing weaker Care I now for merry dancing, O the days that I have squandered And the friendships rudely sundered Of the ties that might have twined me, Every year. Sad and sad to look before us Every year, With a heavier shadow o'er us Every year; To behold each blossom faded, And to know we might have made it Round the year. Many a spectral, beckoning finger, Chides me that so long I linger, Year by year; 9 Every early comrade sleeping CHARLES GRAHAM HALPINE. THE YEAR HAS CHANGED ITS NAME. THE year has changed its name since that last tale; WILLIAM MORRIS. The Earthly Paradise. THE WEAVERS-JANUARY. TELL us, O Janus, whom with dual face The ancients imaged, as if thus to see Before, behind thee, tell us if there be Watch-fires of any kind informed with grac To melt the mists of doubt that interlace And dim our straining vision? We wou The weaving of the new year's tapestry From unknown errors, and from every tracOf known defection. But, alas! our light Falls only on the pattern, while the threa As though by Gobelin weavers swiftly le Shifting in color, shaded now, now brightReveals no purpose till the work is done And on the picture shines a rounded sun MRS. MARY [BARKER] Lo! now the direful monster, whose skin clings Unclothes the earth, and freezes up frail life. He takes his seat upon the cliffs, the mariner Cries in vain. Poor little wretch, that deal'st WILLIAM BLAKE. WINTER. own, THOU hast thy beauties: sterner ones, Thou art austere: thy studded mantle gay Envelopes nature; till her features seem BERNARD BARTON. |