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.
Evermore, every hour,
Rising from hovel, hall and tower,
Swelling the strain of discontent;
Gurgled the hopeless prayer for alms,
Rung out the wild oath impotent;
Echoed by some brief walls of calms,
Straining the listener's shrinking ears,
Like silence when thunderbolts are near.
