[Marilyn Taylor]

Dear Alicia,

I join the chorus of thanks, including your stepping in where I should have been for these many weeks. I am pretty certain I can be a more hands-on Eratospherian from now on, though, and I appreciate your patience, and everyone else's as well. And I know it's a little late for to continuing the New Year theme, but I can't help including one of my favorites from Wilbur:

Year's End (Richard Wilbur)

Now winter downs the dying of the year,
And night is all a settlement of snow;
From the soft street the rooms of houses show
A gathered light, a shapen atmosphere,
Like frozen-over lakes whose ice is thin
And still allows some stirring down within.

I’ve known the wind by water banks to shake
The late leaves down, which frozen where they fell
And held in ice as dancers in a spell
Fluttered all winter long into a lake;
Graved on the dark in gestures of descent,
They seemed their own most perfect monument.

There was perfection in the death of ferns
Which laid their fragile cheeks against the stone
A million years. Great mammoths overthrown
Composedly have made their long sojourns,
Like palaces of patience, in the gray
And changeless lands of ice. And at Pompeii

The little dog lay curled and did not rise
But slept the deeper as the ashes rose
And found the people incomplete, and froze
The random hands, the loose unready eyes
Of men expecting yet another sun
To do the shapely thing they had not done.

These sudden ends of time must give us pause.
We fray into the future, rarely wrought
Save in the tapestries of afterthought.
More time, more time. Barrages of applause
Come muffled from a buried radio.
The New-year bells are wrangling with the snow.

Good wishes to all--
Marilyn

[Gregory Dowling]

That is such a great poem, Marilyn. I've always loved:

We fray into the future, rarely wrought
Save in the tapestries of afterthought.

Gregory

[A. E. Stallings]

Only Wilbur could make "wrangling" onomatopoeic!

[Gail White]

I hope it's not too late to add one more new year poem.
I've always found this one extremely poignant, and it takes a different tack from most poems on the subject.

Poet: Tennyson

THE DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR

Full knee-deep lies the winter snow,
And the winter winds are wearily sighing;
Toll ye the church-bell sad and slow,
And tread softly and speak low,
For the old year lies a-dying.
Old year, you must not die;
You came to us so readily,
You lived with us so steadily,
Old year, you shall not die.

He lieth still, he doth not move;
He will not see the dawn of day.
He hath no other life above.
He gave me a friend, and a true true-love,
And the New-year will take 'em away.
Old year, you must not go;
So long as you have been with us,
Such joy as you have seen with us,
Old year, you shall not go.

He frothed his bumpers to the brim;
A jollier year we shall not see.
But though his eyes are waxing dim,
And though his foes speak ill of him,
He was a friend to me.
Old year, you shall not die;
We did so laugh and cry with you,
I've half a mind to die with you,
Old year, if you must die.

He was full of joke and jest,
But all his merry quips are o'er.
To see him die, across the waste
His son and heir doth ride post-haste,
But he'll be dead before.
Everyone for his own.
The night is starry and cold, my friend,
And the New-year blithe and bold, my friend,
Comes up to take his own.

How hard he breathes! Over the snow
I heard just now the crowing cock.
The shadows flicker to and frol
The cricket chirps; the light burns low;
'Tis nearly twelve o'clock.
Shake hands before you die.
Old year, we'll dearly rue for you.
What is it we can do for you?
Speak out before you die.

His face is growing sharp and thin,
Alack! Our friend is gone.
Close up his eyes; tie up his chin;
Step from the corpse, and let him in
That standeth there alone
And waiteth at the door.
There's a new foot on the floor, my friend,
And a new face at the door, my friend,
A new face at the door.

[Maryann Corbett]

I think I'll just bump this up so we can enjoy it again.

And of course if you have poems to add, please do!

For a slightly acidic viewpoint, look on this page
and scroll down to the Winter 2007 issue for Lisa Barnett's "Another New Year."

Happy New Year to all.
Maryann

[Roger Slater]

I missed that Tennyson (Death of the Old Year) when it was posted last year. Wow! What a stunner.

[This message has been edited by Roger Slater (edited January 03, 2008).]