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A SONG FOR THE NEW YEAR.

* A SONG FOR THE NEW YEAR.

HARK!

The Old Year is gone!

And the young New Year is coming!

Through minutes, and days, and unknown skies, My soul on her forward journey flies;

Over the regions of rain and snow;

And beyond where the wild March-trumpets blow: And I see the meadows, all cowslip-strewn ;

And I dream of the dove in the greenwood lone;

And the wild bee humming

And all because the New Year is coming!

The Winter is cold, the Winter is gray,

But he hath not a sound on his tongue to-day:
The son of the stormy Autumn, he

Totters about on a palsied knee,

With a frozen heart and a feeble head:

Let us pierce a barrel and drink him dead!

The fresh New Year is almost here;

Let us warm him with mistletoe boughs, my dear!
Let us welcome hither with songs and wine,
Who holdeth such joys in his arms divine!
What is the Past,· -to you, or me,
But a thing that was, and was to be?
And now it is gone to a world unknown;
Its deeds are done; its flight is flown!

Hark to The Past! In a bitter tone,
It crieth, "The good Old Year is flown," -

A SONG FOR THE NEW YEAR.

The sire of a thousand thoughtful hours,
Of a thousand songs, of a thousand flowers!
Ah! why, thou ungrateful child of rhyme,
Rail'st thou at the deeds of our father Time?
Hath he not fed thee, day by day,

With fancies that soothe thy soul alway?
Hath he not 'wakened, with pleasant pain,
The Muse that slept in thy teeming brain?
Hath he not, ah dost thou forget

All the amount of the mighty debt?

Hush, hush! The little I owe to Time
I'll pay him, some day, with a moody rhyme,
Full of phantasmas, dark and drear,

As the shadows thrown down by the old Old Year,
Dim as the echoes that lately fell
From the deep Night's funereal bell,
Sounding hollow o'er hill and vale,

Like the close of a mournful tale!

In the mean time, — speak, trump and drum!

The Year is gone! the Year is come!

The fresh New Year, the bright New Year,

That telleth of hope and joy, my dear!

Let us model our spirit to chance and change,

Let us lesson our spirit to hope, and range

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Through pleasures to come, through years un

known;

But never forget the time that's flown!

BRYAN WALLER PROCTER.

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THE NEW YEAR.

THE NEW YEAR.

I HEAR you, blithe new year, ring out your laughter
And promises so sweet:

I see the circling months that follow after,
Arm-linked, with waltzing feet.

Before my door I stand to give you greeting,
As swift you speed along,

And hear afar the echoes still repeating
Your trills of jocund song.

White are the flying garlands that enwreathe you, Wove of the gleaming snow,

And white the sloping fields that stretch beneath you, Mocking the sunset glow.

You shout with glee, like sportive children flinging Wild roses in their play;

And sweet your laughter sounds, like bells a-ringing At bridals far away.

I sat bemoaning that the year was waning,
The old year true and tried;

But at your voice I hush my sad complaining,
To win you to my side.

Ah, happy cherubs, I must trust your smiling,
Your innocent, glad eyes;

Though well I guess what power of fond beguiling
In their enticement lies.

THE NEW YEAR.

And so I call across the buried clovers,
Where dance your restless feet,

And cry,

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Good speed, my merry troop of rovers !
Your promises are sweet.

The snow drifts shine before me in the valleys,
Where you say spring shall be,

But straight I picture blooming orchard-alleys,
With birds on every tree.

Though all the night midwinter's moon is beaming Through cold, resplendent skies,

Beneath full boughs that glimmer in my dreaming, June's leafy shadow lies.

And fancy sets the drowsy bees to humming
Where lilacs flush and sway;

Forgetting none the less that their quick coming
Must speed a chiller day.

O, youngest child of Time, no hint of sorrow
Clouds your prophetic face,

And yet I know your radiant to-morrow
Will lack a present grace.

In life, each springtime grows less fresh and tender, Each summer less divine;

I reap the harvests, but they fail to render

The fruits that once were mine.

O give me back the loves your race have squandered, Those giddy, spendthrift years,

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THE OLD BACHELOR'S NEW YEAR.

The sunlit paths wherein my feet have wandered, Youth's eagerness and tears.

And keep the strange new gifts with which you cheat

me,

Luring my wistful gaze;

From out the past you may not bring to greet me The friends of other days.

MRS. ABBA [GOOLD] WOOLSON.

THE OLD BACHELOR'S NEW YEAR.

O THE spring hath less of brightness
Every year,

And the snow a ghastlier whiteness
Every year;

Nor do summer blossoms quicken,
Nor does autumn fruitage thicken