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The Masque of The New Year.
"So forth issew'd the Seasons of the Years."—Spenser.
Out from tower and from steeple rang the sudden New Year bells,
Like the chorusing of genii in aerial citadels;
And, as they chimed and echoed overthwart the gulfs of gloom,
Lo, a brilliance burst upon me, and a Masque went through the room.
First, the young New Year came forward like a little dancing child,
And his hair was as a glory, and his eyes were bright and wild:
And he shook an odorous torch, and he laughed but did not speak,
And his smile went softly rippling through the roses of his cheek.
Round he looked across his shoulder:—and the Spirit of the Spring
Entered slowly, moved before me, paused and lingered on the wing;
And she smiled and wept together, with a dalliance quaint and sweet,
And her tear-drops changed to flowers underneath her gliding feet.
Then a landscape opened outwards, broad brown woodlands stretched away
In the luminous blue distance of a windy-clear March day;
And at once the branches kindled with a light of hovering green,
And grew vital in the sunshine as the spirit passed between.
Birds flashed about the copses, striking sharp notes through the air;
Danced the lambs within the meadows; crept the snake from out his lair;
Soft as shadow sprang the violets, thousands seeming but as one;
Flamed the crocuses beside them, like gold droppings of the sun.
And the Goddess of the Spring—that spirit tender and benign—
Squeezed a vapoury cloud which vanished into heaven's crystal wine;
And she faded in the distance where the thickening leaves were piled;
And the New Year had grown older, and no longer was a child.
II.
Summer, shaking languid roses from his dew-bedabbled hair,
Summer, in a robe of green, and with his arms and shoulders bare,
Next came forward; and the richness of his pageants filled the eye;
Breadths of English meadows basking underneath the happy sky.
Long grass swayin g in the playing of the almost wearied breeze;
Flowers bowed beneath a crowd of the yellow-armoured bees;
Sumptuous forests filled with twilight, like a dreamy old romance;
Rivers falling, rivers calling, in their indolent advance;
