Works

Be welcome, year! with corn and sickle come;
Make poor the body, but make rich the heart:
What man that bears his sheaves, gold-nodding, home,
Will heed the paint rubbed from his groaning cart!
...

The wave is breaking on the shore,
The echo fading from the chime;
Again the shadow moveth o'er
The dial-plate of time!
O seer-seen Angel! waiting now
With weary feet on sea and shore,...

ROSH-HASHANAH, 5643.


Not while the snow-shroud round dead earth is rolled,
And naked branches point to frozen skies, -
When orchards burn their lamps of fiery gold,...

Lift up thy torch, O Year, and let us see
What Destiny
Hath made thee heir to at nativity!

Doubt, some call Faith; and ancient Wrong and Might,
Whom some name Right;...

What a charm ther is abaat owt new; whether it's a new year or a new waist-coit. Aw sometimes try to fancy what sooart ov a world ther'd be if ther wor nowt new.
...

Let others look for pearl and gold,
Tissues, or tabbies manifold:
One only lock of that sweet hay
Whereon the blessed Baby lay,
Or one poor swaddling-clout, shall be
The richest New-Year's gift to me.

1. Prepare for songs; He's come, He's come;
And be it sin here to be dumb,
And not with lutes to fill the room.

2. Cast holy water all about,
And have a care no fire goes out,...

The circling months begin this day
To run their yearly ring,
And long-breathed time, which ne'er will stay,
Refits his wings and shoots away,
It round again to bring.
Who feels the force of female eyes...

Says Dick, "ther's a nooation sprung up i' mi yed,
For th' furst time i'th' whole coorse o' mi life,
An aw've takken a fancy aw'st like to be wed,
If aw knew who to get for a wife.
...

The Woolworth Building


Enormously it lifts
Its tower against the splendor of the west;
Like some wild dream that drifts
Before the mind, and at the will's behest,...

("L'homme auquel on vous destina.")

[HERNANI, Act I.]


Listen. The man for whom your youth is destined,
Your uncle, Ruy de Silva, is the Duke
Of Pastrana, Count of Castile and Aragon....

A young and inexperienced mouse
Had faith to try a veteran cat, -
Raminagrobis, death to rat,
And scourge of vermin through the house, -
Appealing to his clemency
With reasons sound and fair....

To Monseigneur, The Duke De Bourgogne; Who Had Requested Of M. De La Fontaine A Fable Which Should Be Called "The Cat And The Mouse."

To please a youthful prince, whom Fame
A temple in my writings vows,...

[1]

A man was planting at fourscore.
Three striplings, who their satchels wore,
'In building,' cried, 'the sense were more;
But then to plant young trees at that age!...

The old remain, the young are gone.
The farm dreams lonely on the hill:
From early eve to early dawn
A cry goes with the whippoorwill
"The old remain, the young are gone."
...

The Old Year's gone away
To nothingness and night:
We cannot find him all the day
Nor hear him in the night:
He left no footstep, mark or place
In either shade or sun:...

It passed like the breath of the night-wind away,
It fled like a mist at the dawn of the day;
It lasted its moment, then backward was hurled,
Another increase to the age of the world.
...

The old year is dying,
Its last hour is hieing
Over the verge;
The night winds are plying,
And are mournfully sighing
Its funeral dirge.

And now, in its even,
While its spirit is riven...

How swift they go,
Life's many years,
With their winds of woe
And their storms of tears,
And their darkest of nights whose shadowy slopes
Are lit with the flashes of starriest hopes,...

Low at my feet there lies to-night
A crushed and withered rose;
Within its heart of fading red
No crimson fire glows;
For o'er its leaves the frost of death
Steals like an icy breath;...