New Year / Richard Le Gallienne

New Year
Rondeau

With vain regret we watch the year
Departing. Eighty-nine is here,
     And poor old Eighty-eight has ended —
     And have our ways and morals mended
A whit these twelve months gone, my dear?

No great improvement will appear
In either yours or mine, I fear;
     The past had best go unattended
                    With vain regret.

Of dark surmises keeping clear,
Let's wisely take without a tear
     The bitter with the sweetness blended;
     We'll hope by Fate to be befriended,
Nor sigh, when Ninety shall be near
                    With vain regret.

~~
Richard Le Gallienne (1866-1947)
from Twilight and Candle-Shades, 1888

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]

Richard Le Gallienne biography