Midnight Mass for the Dying Year / Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Midnight Mass for the Dying Year

Yes, the Year is growing old,
    And his eye is pale and bleared!
Death, with frosty hand and cold,
    Plucks the old man by the beard,
        Sorely,— sorely!

The leaves are falling, falling,
    Solemnly and slow;
Caw! caw! the rooks are calling,
    It is a sound of woe,
        A sound of woe!

Through woods and mountain-passes
    The winds, like anthems, roll;
They are chanting solemn masses,
    Singing: Pray for this poor soul,
        Pray,— pray!

And the hooded clouds, like friars,
    Tell their beads in drops of rain,
And patter their doleful prayers;—
    But their prayers are all in vain,
        All in vain!

There he stands in the foul weather,
    The foolish, fond Old Year,
Crowned with wild flowers and with heather,
    Like weak, despised Lear,
        A king,— a king!

Then comes the summer-like day,
    Bids the old man rejoice!
His joy! his last! O, the old man gray
    Loveth that ever-soft voice,
        Gentle and low.

To the crimson woods he saith,
    And the voice gentle and low
Of the soft air, like a daughter's breath,
    Pray do not mock me so!
        Do not laugh at me!

And now the sweet day is dead;
    Cold in his arms it lies;
No stain from its breath is spread
    Over the glassy skies,
        No mist or stain!

Then, too, the Old Year dieth,
    And the forests utter a moan,
Like the voice of one who crieth
    In the wilderness alone,
        Vex not his ghost!

Then comes, with an awful roar,
    Gathering and sounding on,
The storm-wind from Labrador,
    The wind Euroclydon,
        The storm-wind!

Howl! howl! and from the forest
    Sweep the red leaves away!
Would, the sins that thou abhorrest,
    O Soul! could thus decay,
        And be swept away!

For there shall come a mightier blast,
    There shall be a darker day;
And the stars, from heaven down-cast
    Like red leaves be swept away!
         Kyrie, Eleyson!
         Christe, Eleyson!

~~
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
from Voices of the Night, 1839

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow biography

"Midnight Mass for the Dying Year" read by Brad Craft. Courtesy usedbuyer.

See also: The Death of the Old Year / Affred Tannyson