Good-by, kind year, we walk no more together, And from thy wreath of faded fern and heather JANUARY. HERE was never a leaf on bush or tree, The bare boughs rattled shudderingly; The river was dumb and could not speak, From his shining feathers shed off the cold sun; As if her veins were sapless and old, And she rose up decrepitly For a last dim look at earth and sea. -James Russell Lowell. JANUS AND JANUARY. ANUS am I; oldest of potentates! JANUS Forward I look and backward, and below I count as god of avenues and gates The years that through my portals come and go. I block the roads and drift the fields with snow, I chase the wild-fowl from the frozen fen; My frosts congeal the rivers in their flow, My fires light up the hearths and hearts of men. - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. THRESHOLD OF THE NEW YEAR. WE WE are standing on the threshold, we are in the opened door, We are treading on a border land we have never trod before; Another year is opening, and another year is gone, We have passed the darkness of the night, we are in the early morn; We have left the fields behind us o'er which we scattered seed; We pass May yield a partial harvest; we hope for sixty-fold. go; Then gather all your vigor, press forward in the fight, And let this be your motto, "For God and for the Right." - Selected. R THE NEW YEAR. ING out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The year is dying in the night; Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow; Ring out the grief that saps the mind Ring out a slowly dying cause, And ancient forms of party strife; King in the nobler modes of life, With sweeter manners, purer laws. Ring out the want, the care, the sin, The faithless coldness of the times; Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes, But ring the fuller minstrel in. Ring out false pride in place and blood, Ring in the common love of good. Ring out old shapes of foul disease; King out the narrowing lust of gold; King out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace. Ring in the valiant man and free, The larger heart, the kindlier hand; Ring out the darkness of the land, Ring in the Christ that is to be. -Alfred Tennyson. WINTER. UT winter has yet brighter scenes — he boasts BUT Splendors beyond what gorgeous summer knows, Or autumn with its many fruits, and woods All flushed with many hues. Come when the rains. Have glazed the snow and clothed the trees with ice, While the slant sun of February pours Into the bowers a flood of light. Approach! The incrusted surface shall upbear thy steps, The glassy floor. All, all is light; Light without shade. But all shall pass away With the next sun. From numberless vast trunks Shall close o'er the brown woods as it was wont. -William Cullen Bryant. SKATING. A was set, and, visible, for many a mile, ND in the frosty season, when the sun The cottage-windows through the twilight blazed, I heeded not the summons. Happy time It was indeed for all of us: for me It was a time of rapture! Clear and loud The village clock 1 lied six. I wheeled about, That cares not for its home. All shod with steel, We hissed along the polished ice, in games And woodland pleasures, the resounding horn, With the din Meanwhile the precipices rang aloud. Of melancholy, not unnoticed; while the stars Not seldom from the uproar I retired Into a silent bay; or sportively Glanced sideways, leaving the tumultuous throng, Image, that, flying still before me, gleamed And all the shadowy banks on either side Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs |