Dirge for the Year

<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN> <h4 id="id04833" style="margin-top: 2em">DIRGE FOR THE YEAR.</h4> <p id="id04835">1.<br/> Orphan Hours, the Year is dead,<br/> Come and sigh, come and weep!<br/> Merry Hours, smile instead,<br/> For the Year is but asleep.<br/> See, it smiles as it is sleeping,<br/> Mocking your untimely weeping.<br/></p> <p id="id04836">2.<br/> As an earthquake rocks a corse<br/> In its coffin in the clay,<br/> So White Winter, that rough nurse,<br/> Rocks the death-cold Year to-day;<br/> Solemn Hours! wail aloud<br/> For your mother in her shroud.<br/></p> <p id="id04837">3.<br/> As the wild air stirs and sways<br/> The tree-swung cradle of a child,<br/> So the breath of these rude days<br/> Rocks the Year:—be calm and mild,<br/> Trembling Hours, she will arise<br/> With new love within her eyes.<br/></p> <p id="id04838">4.<br/> January gray is here,<br/> Like a sexton by her grave;<br/> February bears the bier,<br/> March with grief doth howl and rave,<br/> And April weeps—but, O ye Hours!<br/> Follow with May's fairest flowers.<br/></p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />