#augusta webster

Be knells the while for the old fallen king Resting his dying head upon the snow? Ring out the old year, for the new year ring.

Hark! hark! the music of the merry chime! The King is dead! God’s blessing on the King! Welcome with gladness this new King of Time.

Oh merry midnight bells, ring blithely, ring, Wake with your breathless peal the startled night, High in your belfry in mad frolic swing.

Laugh out again, sweet music and delight, In happy homes a moment hushed to hear The midnight strokes boom out the old year’s flight.

See, he is gone for ever, the old year, Why should we vex our hearts with sad farewells? Let the dead sleep, bare not his shrouded bier,

Ring on, ring yet more gladly, merry bells, Peal the new lord of days glad welcoming— What though your happy chimes be also knells?

And what is a flower alone, Then alone and for ever alone, Come no one by? Why should a flower be fair for its own? Choose it, pluck it to die.

She tired of weeping, and slept; Who woke her up but the Sun? And joy and love had begun To teach her why she had wept Oh bright new day For the startled May!

Sleep on beneath the snows, chilled, barren, earth; There are no blossoms for thy winter dearth: Break not nor melt, fall still from heaven, wan snows; Hide the spoiled earth, and numb her to repose.

I had a rose-tree born in May; I watched it burgeon and grow red, I breathed the perfume that it shed. Then summer-time had sped, The frost came with its sleep My rose-tree died away. Only the silence hears me weep— Alas, lost rose-tree! lost, lost May!

The garden’s lily blows once more; The buried rose will wake and climb; There is no thought of rain and rime After, next summer-time. But the heart’s blooms are weak; Once dead for ever o’er. Not night, not silence knows me seek My joy that waned and blooms no more.

Still yesterweek, but yesterweek, Thou hadst, unfolding in warm light, Spread ripening to the crimson streak And seed to make the next year bright.

But now there fall the latter rains, The chills that brown the ferns are come; Southward, above the shivering plains, The eddying swallows hasten home.

Oh flower too frail, too late of birth, There is no sun for such as thou: Droop down upon the barren earth; What boots it to have blossomed now?