Dirge for the Year

Orphan Hours, the Year is dead,

Come and sigh, come and weep!

Merry Hours, smile instead,

For the Year is but asleep.

See, it smiles as it is sleeping,

Mocking your untimely weeping.

As an earthquake rocks a corse

In its coffin in the clay,

So White Winter, that rough nurse,

Rocks the death-cold Year today;

Solemn Hours! wail aloud

For your mother in her shroud.

As the wild air stirs and sways

The tree-swung cradle of a child,

So the breath of these rude days

Rocks the Year:—becalm and mild,

Trembling Hours, she will arise

With new love within her eyes.

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, ye Hours!

Follow with May's fairest flowers.