A BURDEN
What did you bring to us, Old Year?
Many a hope and many a fear?
Smiles a few, but many a tear?
Many a heartache for days together,
Many a taste of frosty weather?
Many a wish ungratified,
Many a happiness denied?
But you brought us, too, the rosy day,
Let its troubles be what they may;
The hollow night, whose planets climb
Pathways older, perhaps, than Time;
The sunset's lingering, fading flush
And the twilight's eloquent hush;
And baby moon, like a sweet surprise,
Leaning out of the western skies.
You brought the dawn, with its filmy light
Woven out of the infinite;
The early anemone in the wood,
And all the delicate sisterhood;
The pink mayflower in its hiding-places,
And the pale Linnæa's tender graces;
The blood root, with its crimson stain,
And the lonesome whippoorwill's refrain.
Out of your treasure-house you brought
The season's tapestries, enwrought
With wild and beautiful devices,
And fragrant with all fragrant spices;
The scarlet and gold of the autumn-leaf,
The corn in the ear, the wheat in the sheaf
The witchery of the snow, that weaves
After the pattern of stars and leaves,
And the light that never from land or sea
Borrowed half of its poetry.
Many a hope and many a fear?
Smiles a few, but many a tear?
Many a heartache for days together,
Many a taste of frosty weather?
Many a wish ungratified,
Many a happiness denied?
But you brought us, too, the rosy day,
Let its troubles be what they may;
The hollow night, whose planets climb
Pathways older, perhaps, than Time;
The sunset's lingering, fading flush
And the twilight's eloquent hush;
And baby moon, like a sweet surprise,
Leaning out of the western skies.
You brought the dawn, with its filmy light
Woven out of the infinite;
The early anemone in the wood,
And all the delicate sisterhood;
The pink mayflower in its hiding-places,
And the pale Linnæa's tender graces;
The blood root, with its crimson stain,
And the lonesome whippoorwill's refrain.
Out of your treasure-house you brought
The season's tapestries, enwrought
With wild and beautiful devices,
And fragrant with all fragrant spices;
The scarlet and gold of the autumn-leaf,
The corn in the ear, the wheat in the sheaf
The witchery of the snow, that weaves
After the pattern of stars and leaves,
And the light that never from land or sea
Borrowed half of its poetry.