A NEW-YEAR'S day!

XVII.

NEW YEAR'S DAY.

Time was that I was glad

When the new year was usher'd into life
With midnight fiddle, morning drum and fife.
I wonder'd then how any could be sad
Because another year had gone to add
One figure to the date of human strife.

And yet I knew that sin and pain were rife,

That

age would fain be cold, that youth was mad ;—

All this I knew, yet, knowing, ne'er believed;
And now I know it, and believe it too :
But yet I am not of all grace bereaved;
I wish the hope that hath myself deceived
May, like the happy year, itself renew,
And be at least to one dear maiden true.

SONNETS AND OTHER POEMS

ON

BIRDS, INSECTS, AND FLOWERS.

HUMMING BIRDS.

THE insect birds that suck nectareous juice
From straightest tubes of curly-petaled flowers,
Or catch the honey-dew that falls profuse
Through the soft air, distill'd in viewless showers,
Whose colours seem the very souls of gems,
Or parting rays of fading diadems :---

I have but seen their feathers,—that is all.
As much as we can know of poets dead
Or living; but the gilded plumes that fall
Float on the earth, or in the wind dispread
Go everywhere to beautify the breeze.

Sweet wind, surcharged with treasures such as these,

may not feel:- -I never may

behold

The spark of life, that trimmed in garb so bright

That flying quintessence of ruby, gold,

Mild emerald, and lucid chrysolite.

Yet am I glad that life and joy were there,
That the small creature was as blithe as fair.

VOL. II.

G