New Year

“ Made blind our hearts this parting to foretell.
Yet why, while wan and wintry sunlight stays
On perished gold of Autumn fields, delays
Your heart to speak, while both our hearts rebel?
Together we have gathered through the year
All that the year could give us of its best,
Is it not meet our parting should be here,
Now in the season drear of death and rest?
Yet since together we its joys have known
How shall each meet the strange New Year alone. ”

“ Rapid, rosy-tinted lightnings, where the rocky clouds are riven,
Like the lifting of a veil before the inner courts of heaven;
Silver stars in azure evenings, slowly climbing up the steep;
Cornfields ripening to the harvest, and the wide seas smooth with sleep.
Circled with those living splendours, Summer passed from out my sight;
Like a dream that filled with beauty all the caverns of the night!
And the vision and the presence into empty nothing ran—
And the New Year was still older, and seemed now a youthful man.
III.
Autumn! ”

“ Next to Christmas-day, the most pleasant annual epoch in existence is the advent of the New Year. There are a lachrymose set of people who usher in the New Year with watching and fasting, as if they were bound to attend as chief mourners at the obsequies of the old one. ”

“ The New Year’s gates are open, and Fate, standing between the sun and the burning morning clouds upon the mound of ashes of the year which has fallen to dust, deals out the days according to their lot. ”

“ To-morrow'll be of all the year the maddest, merriest day,
For I'm to be Queen o'the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o'the May.
NEW YEAR'S EVE.
If you're waking, call me early, call me early, mother dear,
For I would see the sun rise upon the glad new-year.
It is the last new-year that I shall ever see,—
Then you may lay me low i' the mold, and think no more of me. ”

“ The days and nights swing equally upon the golden balance of time. The year is whitening with its crop of frost-blossoms from which no harvest-home has ever yet [19] been called. Like an unwritten page, the new year lies before us in untrodden fields of shining snow. God grant the footsteps of Death be not the first to track the unbroken path that lies before us. May joy and peace and love, like the roots of the violets under the snow, quicken and blossom for all of us as the year advances, and may our progress be, like January's, right steadily onward unto June! ”

“ And, whether bright thy face,
Or dim with clouds we cannot comprehend,
We’ll hold our patient hands, each in his place,
And trust thee to the end,
Knowing thou leadest onwards to those spheres
Where there are neither days nor months nor years. A New Year. Margaret E. Sangster.
Why do we greet thee, O blithe New Year!
What are thy pledges of mirth and cheer?
Comest, knight-errant, the wrong to right?
Comest to scatter our gloom with light?
Wherefore the thrill, the sparkle and shine,
In heart and eyes at a word of thine? ”

“ Who wheels the seasons in their mazy course,
While hand in hand their measured round they trode.
Maker of the new-born year,
Great Creator, bending, hear;
Lo! we bow in adoration,
Join the chorus of creation.
Thine the flowery spring's perfume,
Thine the glowing summer's bloom,
Thine the autumn's varied dyes,
Freshening fruits and cloudless skies ”

“ A fine day, too, is this same New Year's Day of 1876—a glorious day—sunny of course, but with a delicious breeze stealing among the flowers and shrubs in capricious puffs, and snatching a differing scent from each heavy cluster of blossom it visits. ”

“ Its smiles and its tears, its hopes and its fears,
Its labors and duties, all done.
We stand face to face with the New Year,
Nor know what it hides from our sight;
God grant that it be kind to you, and to me,
That it lead us in ways that are light.
The bells in the steeples are joyful,
The children are shouting in glee,
There is mirth and good cheer in the happy New Year--
All hail to young '73! ”

“ The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. ”

“ Reflect upon your present blessings—of which every man has many—not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some. Fill your glass again with a merry face and contented heart. Our life on it, but your Christmas shall be merry and your New Year a happy one.
“So may the New Year be a happy one to you, happy to many more whose happiness depends on you! ”

“ Singly or arm-in-arm, some speechless, others noisy and quarrelsome, the votaries of the New Year go meandering in and out and cannoning one against another; and now and again, one falls and lies as he has fallen. ”

“ The New Year has entered our quiet, little northern home, on the noisy Corso, with an occurrence which has made a new year in the life of my young friend, and has gladdened me with the sight of the power of pure love and gratitude in the female heart. ”

“ God send you a happy New Year!
For Christ's circumcision this day we keep,
Who for our sins did often weep;
His hands and feet were wounded deep,
And His blessed side with a spear.
His head they crownéd then with thorn,
And at Him they did laugh and scorn,
Who for to save our souls was born:
God send us a happy New Year!
And now with New-Year's gifts each friend
Unto each other they do send;
God grant we may all our lives amend,
And that the truth may appear. ”

“ Trotty might have read a poor man’s allegory in the fading year; but he was past that, now.
And only he? Or has the like appeal been ever made, by seventy years at once upon an English labourer’s head, and made in vain!
The streets were full of motion, and the shops were decked out gaily. The New Year, like an Infant Heir to the whole world, was waited for, with welcomes, presents, and rejoicings. There were books and toys for the New Year, glittering trinkets for the New Year, dresses for the New Year, schemes of fortune for the New Year; new inventions to beguile it. ”

“ New is the sun of the new year, and bright as the new sun shalt thou be, and mild withal as the moon. May thy beauty and thy strength grow with the growth of the new year. From to-day will I bear on my head all thy sins, diseases, misfortunes, shame, mischief, all that is aimed in battle against thee, all that threatens thee, all that is bad and hurtful for thee and thy kingdom. ”

“ Welcome, merry Christmas and New-Year! prized by children above all other days in the year. Ye are associated with pleasant recollections of old Santa Claus and sugar-plums—with bright visions of a cheerful fireside, merry games, pleasant stories, and happy, smiling faces. First comes Christmas Eve, when each young face beams with eager curiosity and delightful anticipation—all wondering and guessing what they shall find in their stockings next morning ”

“ ON NEW YEAR, 1897 TO G. D. AND S. F. B.
God bless you thro' this bright new year,
The first you spend together;
Give peace and trust thro' cloudy days,
Joy in its sunny weather.
And may the days as days go by,
Still richer seem and sweeter,
And passing seasons make your lives
In every good completer.
There are not words to tell the love
In which I could caress you;
Your dear united names I breathe,
And once more pray, God bless you.
TO ANNA ON HER SIXTEENTH BIRTHDAY
Sixteen! ”

“ And, daughter, do you not know how many people are frozen and die by the wayside in the cold winter? The New Year brings them two or three days of happiness, then all the rest of the year they are hungry and sad. ”

“ Still my heart, then break it!—Yes, one day, when the free spirit spreads her wings in a fairer heaven, and when the New Year breaks upon a purer world—when we all meet, and love, again—then shall I lay my longings, prayers, and wishes at thy feet. ”

“ The thought of the clean, fresh pages of another year so soon to be written upon has proved a stimulus and an inspiration in many a life; and, in spite of all the broken resolutions, the world is on the whole much better because of a certain fresh impulse to right living which this day always brings.
Nature has her New Year in the lovely springtime, the time of budding leaf and blossoming flower and nesting bird. Yet for us human beings the real New Year’s Day of work is neither the first of January nor the twenty-first of March, but the early autumn. ”

“ 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 ”

“ At the close of this day he who can reflect with satisfaction on the past, may anticipate with calm delight the entrance of the new year, and lift his eyes to the living lustres of the firmament with grateful feelings. They shine out their prismatic colours through the cold thin air, keeping watch while man slumbers, or cheering him, who contemplates their fires, to purposes of virtue. ”

“ THE new year dawns, and its appearance is hailed by a flutter of festivity. Men and women run from house to house, scattering gifts, smiles, and congratulations. It is a custom that seems borrowed from a better day, unless indeed it be a prophecy that such must come. ”

“ The year in which we have entered upon our journey is passing away. To-night when the midnight bells send forth their clamorous voices, we shall greet the new year, and the work it brings. No peaceful task dare we expect, but something of good accomplished may it see. ”

“ It is customary, every New Year's eve in America, to ring bells, fire guns, send up rockets, and, in many other ways, to show joy and gratitude that the old year has been so kind, and that the new year is so auspicious. ”

“ We walked by their side, and we told them each grief,
And they kissed off our tears while they whispered relief;
And the stories of hearts that may not be revealed
In the hearts of the dead years are buried and sealed.
Let the New Year sing
At the Old Year's grave:
Will the New Year bring
What the Old Year gave?
Ah! the Stranger-Year trips over the snows,
And his brow is wreathed with many a rose:
But how many thorns do the roses conceal
Which the roses, when withered, shall so soon reveal?
Let the New Year smile
When the Old Year dies ”

“ Then some carol-singers come to the Hall-door, and the bells of the church proclaim, in joyful peals, the birth of the New Year;—a new year of hopes, and joys, and cares, and griefs, and unions, and partings;—a new year of which, who then present shall see the end? who shall be there to welcome in its successor? who shall be absent, laid in the secret places of the earth? Ah, who? For, even in the midst of revelry and youth, the joy-peals of those old church bells can strike the key-note of a wail of grief.
Another charade follows, in which new actors join. ”

“ God help the poor, when December’s snows are upon the earth!
On such a night as this, the Old and New Year met—both struggling for supremacy—each unwilling to accord to the other unlimited sway.
“I have been, and I am yet a monarch,” said the Old Year; “one, too, whose subjects are almost countless. You may not number the tongues which have sung of my exploits; and the length of days which has been mine has given me a knowledge and wisdom, of which thou knowest nothing. What? resign my throne to thee, thou stripling! never!!” ”

“ What fun it is to build the snow man, and even if the hands get cold, the eyes shine brighter than in warm days and the cheeks [169] are rosy as the reddest flower. "Hurrah for Winter!" shout the boys. The merriest holidays I have when all hearts are gay and filled with loving care for others. I would not change, dear Father Time, with any of my sisters. I say good-by to the passing year and welcome the new year. If the old year has had troubles and sorrows, all the people turn with hope to the new, and call to one another the wish, "A Happy New Year to all!" ”

“ Our hopes, like snow-flakes, now are falling fast,
Our dreams are broken—God have mercy on us!—
We must not perish in the wintry blast—
For see, O see!—the sun,—the sun is shining!
'Tis noon, and lo!—yon glorious orb of day
Is turning backward, a New-year designing—
So shall all Winters turn to Spring alway.
And so shall Winter be an emblem only
Of the dark days that meet us, one and all,
Making our little lives seem sad and lonely,
Until the New-Year answers to our call,
Until another Spring renewing Nature ”

“ Can wash the blood-guilt from your hands?
Make your account with Him as best you can.
What other hope has this New Year to give?
For outraged earth has laid on you a ban
Not to be lifted while you live. ”

“ But, we measure man’s life by years, and it is a solemn knell that warns us we have passed another of the landmarks which stands between us and the grave. Disguise it as we may, the reflection will force itself on our minds, that when the next bell announces the arrival of a new year, we may be insensible alike of the timely warning we have so often neglected, and of all the warm feelings that glow within us now. ”

“ I have a holiday today; but what can one do on a rainy day? I walk up and down my attic out of temper, and I determine to light my fire.
Unfortunately the matches are bad, the chimney smokes, the wood goes out! I throw down my bellows in disgust, and sink into my old armchair.
In truth, why should I rejoice to see the birth of a new year? All those who are already in the streets, with holiday looks and smiling faces—do they understand what makes them so gay? Do they even know what is the meaning of this holiday, or whence comes the custom of New-Year’s gifts? ”