_The Old Year_ 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: The last year he'd a neighbour's face, In this he's known by none. All nothing everywhere: Mists we on mornings see Have more of substance when they're here And more of form than he. He was a friend by every fire, In every cot and hall-- A guest to every heart's desire, And now he's nought at all. Old papers thrown away, Old garments cast aside, The talk of yesterday, Are things identified; But time once torn away No voices can recall: The eve of New Year's Day Left the Old Year lost to all. _The Yellowhammer_ When shall I see the white-thorn leaves agen, And yellowhammers gathering the dry bents By the dyke side, on stilly moor or fen, Feathered with love and nature's good intents? Rude is the tent this architect invents, Rural the place, with cart ruts by dyke side. Dead grass, horse hair, and downy-headed bents Tied to dead thistles--she doth well provide, Close to a hill of ants where cowslips bloom And shed oer meadows far their sweet perfume. In early spring, when winds blow chilly cold, The yellowhammer, trailing grass, will come To fix a place and choose an early home, With yellow breast and head of solid gold. _Autumn_ The thistle-down's flying, though the winds are all still, On the green grass now lying, now mounting the hill, The spring from the fountain now boils like a pot; Through stones past the counting it bubbles red hot. The ground parched and cracked is like overbaked bread, The greensward all wracked is, bents dried up and dead. The fallow fields glitter like water indeed, And gossamers twitter, flung from weed unto weed. Hill tops like hot iron glitter bright in the sun, And the rivers we're eying burn to gold as they run; Burning hot is the ground, liquid gold is the air; Whoever looks round sees Eternity there. _Song_ I peeled bits of straws and I got switches too From the grey peeling willow as idlers do, And I switched at the flies as I sat all alone Till my flesh, blood, and marrow was turned to dry bone. My illness was love, though I knew not the smart, But the beauty of love was the blood of my heart. Crowded places, I shunned them as noises too rude And fled to the silence of sweet solitude. Where the flower in green darkness buds, blossoms, and fades, Unseen of all shepherds and flower-loving maids-- The hermit bees find them but once and away. There I'll bury alive and in silence decay.