All day it snows: the sheeted post The sumach and the wayside thorn, And clustering spangles lodge and shine The ragged bramble, dwarfed and old, Still cheerily the chickadee Singeth to me on fence and tree: And heavenly thoughts, as soft and white Clothing with love my lonely heart, Transfigured by their purity. John Townsend Trowbridge [1827-19 A GLEE FOR WINTER HENCE, rude Winter! crabbed old fellow, Well-a-day! in rain and snow What will keep one's heart aglow? What will kill this dull old fellow? 1 The Death of the Old Year Dear old songs for ever new; Make sweet May of Winter weather. 1395 Alfred Domett [1811-1887] THE DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR FULL knee-deep lies the winter snow, He lieth still, he doth not move; He hath no other life above, He gave me a friend, and a true true-love, Old year, you must not go; So long as you have been with us, He frothed his bumpers to the brim; Old year, you shall not die; We did so laugh and cry with you, He was full of joke and jest, To see him die, across the waste Every one for his own. The night is starry and cold, my friend, And the New-year, blithe and bold, my friend, Comes up to take his own. How hard he breathes! over the snow I heard just now the crowing cock. The cricket chirps; the light burns low; Shake hands before you die. Old year, we'll dearly rue for you. His face is growing sharp and thin. Close up his eyes; tie up his chin; Step from the corpse, and let him in And waiteth at the door. There's a new foot on the floor, my friend, And a new face at the door, my friend, A new face at the door. Alfred Tennyson [1809-1892] DIRGE FOR THE YEAR ORPHAN hours, the year is dead, Merry hours, smile instead, For the year is but asleep. Dirge for the Year As an earthquake rocks a corse In its coffin in the clay, So white Winter, that rough nurse, For your mother in her shroud. As the wild air stirs and sways January gray is here, Like a sexton by her grave; February bears the bier; March with grief doth howl and rave, And April weeps-but, O, ye hours, 1397 Percy Bysshe Shelley [1792-1822] WOOD AND FIELD AND RUNNING BROOK WALDEINSAMKEIT I Do not count the hours I spend In wandering by the sea; Like God it useth me. In plains that room for shadows make Bound in by streams which give and take Or on the mountain-crest sublime, O what have I to do with time? Cities of mortals woe-begone But in the serious landscape lone Stern benefit abides. Sheen will tarnish, honey cloy, And merry is only a mask of sad, The woods at heart are glad. There the great Planter plants. Of fruitful worlds the grain, 1 |