'The Dying Year' by S. Frances Harrison

THE DYING YEAR

               The old year dies! Of this be sure,

                     The old leaves rot beneath the snow.

                     The old skies falter from the blow

               Dealt by the heavens that shall endure

                     When sky and leaf together go.

               And some are glad and some are grieved.

                     Much as when some poor mortal dies;

                     The first sensation of surprise

               Is lost in sobs of his bereaved.

                     Or cold relief with dry-dust eyes,

               That view his coffin absently, 

                     And wonder first how much it cost,

                     And next, how came his fortune lost,

               And how will live his family.

                     And how he looked when he was crost.

               But tears—no, no—they only surge

                     From those who knew him. They were few;

                     He had his faults; he seldom knew

               The thing to say, condemn, or urge;

                     Tis better he has gone from view.

               So neither do we weep—God knows,

                     We have but little time for tears!

                     A time for hopes, a time for fears,

               A time for strife, a time for woes

                     We have—but hardly time for tears.

               O it were good, and it were sweet.

                     If we might weep our fill somewhere,

                     In other world, in purer air,

               Perhaps in heaven's golden street,

                     Perhaps upon its crystal stair!

               For "power and leave to weep" shall be

                     The golden city's legend dear;

                     Though wiped away be every tear.

               First for a season shall flow free

                     The floods that leave the vision clear!

               So if we could we would, Old Year,

                     Conjure a tear up when you go,

                     And pace in solemn order slow

               Behind your gray and cloud -borne bier,

                     Draped with the wan and fluttering snow.

               Yet what is it, this year we miss?

                     An arbitrary thing, a mark;

                     A rapid writing in the dark;

               Dead wire, that with a futile hiss

                     Strikes back no single answering spark.

               There is no year, we dream and say,

                     Again, no year, we say and dream,

                     And dumbly note the frozen stream,

               And note the bird on barren spray.

                     And note the cold, though bright sunbeam.

               We quarrel with the times and hours,

                     The year should end—we say—when come

                     The last long rolls of March's drum.

               And too—we say—with grass and flowers

                     Should rise the New Year, like to some

               Gay antique goddess, ever young,

                     With pallid shoulders touched with rose,

                     Firm waist that mystic zones enclose,

               White feet from violets shyly sprung.

                     Her raiment—that the high gods chose.

               And yet the poet, born to preach

                     With yearning for his human kind,

                     His verse but sermon undefined,

               Will fail in what he means to teach,

                     If he proclaim not, high designed,

               The Old Year dies! It is enough!

                     And he has won, for eyes grow dim

                     As passeth slow his pageant grim,

               And many a hand both fair and rough

                     Shall wipe away a tear for him—

               For him, and for the wasted hours,

                     The sinful days, the moments weak.

                     The words we did or did not speak,

              The weeds that crowded out our flowers,

                    The blessings that we did not seek.

—From S. Frances Harrison's Pine, Rose and Fleur de Lis (Toronto: Hart & Co, 1891)

'Christmas' by S. Frances Harrison

CHRISTMAS

      Who will sing the Christ?

                  Will he who rang his Christmas chimes

                  Of faith and hope in Gospel ray,

                  That pealed along the world's highway,

                  And woke the world to purer times—

                              Will he sing the Christ?

                  Or that new voice which vaguely gives—

                  One day its song for Rome—the next,

                  In soul-destroying strife perplext

                  For England's faith and future lives

                              Shall he sing the Christ?

                  Or the sweet children in the schools,

                  That hymn their carols hand-in-hand

                  All purely, can they understand

                  The wisdom that must make us fools—

                              Can they sing the Christ?

                  Or yearning priest who to his kind

                  From carven pulpit gives the Word,

                  Or praying mother who has erred,

                  And blindly led her erring blind—

                              Have they not sung the Christ?

                  "Lord! I of sinners am the chief!"

                  One, seated by his Christmas fires,

                  Hearkens the bells from distant spires,

                  But hangs his head in unbelief—

                              He cannot sing the Christ.

                  Grant to such, Lord, the seeing eye!

                  Grant as the World grows old and cold,

                  All hearts Thy beauty may behold.

                  Grant, lest the souls of sinners die—

                              That All may sing the Christ.

—From S. Frances Harrison's Pine, Rose and Fleur de Lis (Toronto: Hart & Co, 1891)

Merry Christmas from our home to yours!

Related posts:

'A Child's Song of Christmas' by Marjorie Pickthall

'A Mother at Christmas' by Edna Jaques

'A Christmas Fantasy' by Bernard Freeman Trotter
'When Christmas Comes' by Verna Sheard

Great War Christmas Verse from a Century Past

'Christmas 1916' by Robert Stanley Weir

A Century-Old Prayer for Christmas
Timely Verse from a Christmas a Century Past
Christmas Greetings from Gay Page

'Christmas in Heaven' by Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

Arthur Stringer Pines for Christmas
Miss Machar's 'The Call of Christmas - 1914'

Christmas Verse by the Master of All Poets

'December' by S. Frances Harrison

An old poem for the New Month by daughter of Toronto Susie Frances Harrison (née Riley; a/k/a Seranus). This version comes from her second collection, Pine, Rose and Fleur de Lis (Toronto: Hart & Co, 1891).

DECEMBER

I long for a noble mood. I long to rise,

Like those large rolling clouds of ashen pink

That deepen into purple, over strife

And small mechanic doings. How superb

That landscape in the sky to which I walk,

And gain at will a spacious colour-world,

In which my finer self may feel no fear!

The distance far between that goal and me

Seems lightly bridged; breathless, I win that goal—

The shores of purple and the seas of gold.

Below, how flat the still small earth—a sphere

That only the leaden soul takes solace in!

The long pine stretches, barred in sombre black,

Cross at right-angles fields that are gray with snow—

Not white, but gray, for all the colours is here,

Colour—a new sacrament—melted gems,

The hearts of all water-lilies, the tips of their wings—

Young angels', plumed in topaz, garnet, rose—

The dazzling diamond white, the white of pearl.

How poor a place the little dark world appears,

Seen from this gold-cloud region, basoned in fire!

Only a step away, and nothing is seen

Of the homes, huts, churches, palaces it bears

Upon its dry brown bosom. There remains

But the masterful violet sea, that angrily

This moment somewhere gnashes its yellow teeth

Against a lonely reef. What's most like God

In the universe, if not this same strong sea,

Encircling, clasping, bearing up the world,

Blessing it with soft caresses, then, for faults,

Chiding in God-like surges of wrath and storm?

But the ocean of cloud is placid, and the shores,

Rolled up in their amethyst bulk towards the stars,

Fade noiselessly from pearl to purple dark.

The shades fall even here. Here—not exempt

From death and darkness even these shining airs—

The night comes swifter on than when on earth.

The fringes of faintest azure, where the bars

Of paler cloud are fading into gray,

Are dulled and blotted out. Opaque has grown

The molten in one moment; fleecy pale

And ghastly all the purple lonely then,

And awed to horror of those glacial peaks,

I bridge the vaporous barrier once again,

And tread the despised earth. Then how too dear

Doth the rude, common light of earth appear—

That of a street lamp, burning far, but clear!

The sign of human life, of human love,

Of habitation sweet, of common joys

And common plans, though precious, yet not prized,

Till in a moment's fancy I had lost them.