Dirge For The Year

***
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, "Posthumous Poems", 1824, and dated
January 1, 1821.]



1.
Orphan Hours, the Year is dead,
Come and sigh, come and weep!
Merry Hours, smile instead,
For the Year is but asleep.
See, it smiles as it is sleeping,                                    _5
Mocking your untimely weeping.
2.
As an earthquake rocks a corse
In its coffin in the clay,
So White Winter, that rough nurse,
Rocks the death-cold Year to-day;                                    _10
Solemn Hours! wail aloud
For your mother in her shroud.
3.
As the wild air stirs and sways
The tree-swung cradle of a child,
So the breath of these rude days                                     _15
Rocks the Year:--be calm and mild,
Trembling Hours, she will arise
With new love within her eyes.
4.
January gray is here,
Like a sexton by her grave;                                          _20
February bears the bier,
March with grief doth howl and rave,
And April weeps--but, O ye Hours!
Follow with May's fairest flowers.