University of Virginia Library

[JANUARY and FEBRUARY.]

[Lines from an earlier draft.]

JANUARY

The year is gone and now another year
Begins again amid half frozen rain
From its strange hand scattering both hope and fear,

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xxix

Idle forebodings, longings sore and vain,
Uncertain joys and certain toil and pain.
What thing is there but one can still the strife:
The end of labour is the end of life.

Let us leave hopes because we doubt them all,
Let us leave fear at least a little while,
Let us forget ourselves the while we call
Old names before us, let us now beguile
These sorry days with thoughts of Helen's smile,
And let our eyes dim looking through the wine
Behold once more the prow of Argo shine.

Then in our memory and forgetfulness
May we [be] like to men upon the sea
Laid fast asleep in midst of their distress,
But dreaming how the stream runs pleasantly
By summer meadows where the mowers be,
Are they not happy though they wake no more
Until they reach the unknown shadowy shore.

FEBRUARY

Look out of door to-day and see the streets
Swept by the cold unkindly north-east wind,
And how the rain upon the window beats
Putting all thought of summer from the mind.
So on this eve what solace can we find
But watching how the wine runs bright and clear;
Yet, would the summer and its sun were here.

Nay, silence, and get ready for the spring
And meet her with your heart all free from care
For in the woods wolfsbane is blossoming
And faintly shows the primrose here and there,
And there is scent of new things in the air,
And by the south wind blown from place to place
Northward the longed-for Spring draws on apace.

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xxx

Yea, so things come and go and come again,
And if one root within the hazelwood
Dies off for ever, then with little pain
Another grows up where the lost one stood.
And so in April all seems fair and good
And with the sight thereof our eyes we please:
Now unto someone may we be as these.