Page:The New Penelope.djvu/352

346 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.