A New Year Letter

To Two Friends married in the New Year     (TO. MR. AND MRS. WELCH)     Another year to its last day,     Like a lost sovereign, runaway,     Tips down the gloomy grid of time:     In vain to holloa, 'Stop it! hey!' -     A cab-horse that has taken fright,     Be you a policeman, stop you may;     But not a sovereign mad with glee     That scampers to the grid, perdie,     And not a year that's taken flight;     To both 'tis just a grim good night.     But no! the imagery, say you,     Is wondrous witty - but not true;     For the old year that last night went     Has not been so much lost as spent:     You gave it in exchange to Death     For just twelve months of happy breath.     It was a ticket to admit     Two happy people close to sit -     A 'Season' ticket, one might say,     At Time's eternal passion play.     O magic overture of Spring,     O Summer like an Eastern King,     O Autumn, splendid widowed Queen,     O Winter, alabaster tomb     Where lie the regal twain serene,     Gone to their yearly doom.     But all you bought with that spent year, -     Ah, friends! it was as nothing, was it?     Nothing at all to hold compare     With what you buy with this New Year.     A home! ah me, you could not buy     Another half so precious toy,     With all the other years to come     As that grown-up doll's house - a home.     O wine upon its threshold stone,     And horse-shoes on the lintel of it,     And happy hearts to keep it warm,     And God Himself to love it!     Dear little nest built snug on bough     Within the World-Tree's mighty arms,     I would I knew a spell that charms     Eternal safety from the storm;     To give you always stars above,     And always roses on the bough -     But then the Tree's own root is Love,     Love, love, all love, I vow.     New Year 1893.