In her innocent bliss, A fair bride said with sweet earnestness, "For the dead Year am I truly sad; Since in its happy and hopeful days, Every brief hour my heart was glad, And blessings were strewn in all my ways: Will it be so forevermore? Will the New Years bring of love new store?" Youth and maid. Of their conscious blushes half afraid, Shunning each other's tell-tale eyes, Yet cherishing hopes too fond to own; Speed the Old Year with secret sighs; And smile that his time is overflown; Shall they not hear each other say "Dear Love!" ere the New Year's passed away? "O, haste on! The year or the pleasure is dead that is gone!" Boasted the man of pomp and power; "That which we hold is alone the good; Give me new pleasures for every hour, And grieve over past joys ye who would-- Joys that are fled are poor, I wis-- Give me forever the newest bliss!" "Wish me joy," Girl-Beauty cried, with glances coy: "In the New Year a woman I; I'll then have jewels in my hair, And such rare webs as Princes buy Be none too choice for me to wear: I'll queen it as a beauty should, And not be won before I'm wooed!" "Poor and proud--poor and proud!" Sighed a student in the motley crowd-- "I heard her whisper that aside: O fatal fairness, aping heaven When earthly most!--I'll not deride-- God knows that were all good gifts given To me as lavishly as rain, I'd bring them to her feet again." "Here are the fools we use for tools; Bending their passion, ere it cools, To any need," the cynic said: "Lo, I will give him gold, and he Shall sell me brain as it were bread! His very soul I'll hold in fee For baubles that shall buy the hand Of the coldest woman in the land!" Spirit sore, The Old Year cared to see no more; While, as he turned, he heard a moan-- Frosty and keen was the wintry night-- Prone on the marble paving-stone, Unwatched, unwept, a piteous sight, Starved and dying a poor wretch lay; Through the blast he heard him gasping say: "O, Old Year! From sightless eyes you force this tear; Sorrows you've heaped upon my head, Losses you've gathered to drive me wild, All that I lived for, loved, are dead,-- Brother and sister, wife and child, I, too, am perishing as well; I shall share the toll of your passing bell!" Grieved, and sad, For the sins and woes the Human had, The Old Year strove to avert his eyes; But fly or turn wherever he would, On his vexed ear smote the mingled cries Of revel and new-made widowhood-- Of grief that would not be comforted With the loved and beautiful lying dead.