Happy New Year!
Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
New Year’s Morning (Excerpt)
by Helen Hunt Jackson
John Clare (1793 – 1864)
The Old Year’s gone away
. .To nothingness and night:
We cannot find him all the day
.Nor hear him in the night:
He left no footstep, mark or place
. .In either shade or sun:
The last year he’d a neighbour’s face,
. .In this he’s known by none.
All nothing everywhere:
. .Mists we on mornings see
Have more of substance when they’re here
. .And more of form than he.
He was a friend by every fire,
. .In every cot and hall–
A guest to every heart’s desire,
. .And now he’s nought at all.
Old papers thrown away,
. .Old garments cast aside,
The talk of yesterday,
. .Are things identified;
But time once torn away
. .No voices can recall:
The eve of New Year’s Day
. .Left the Old Year lost to all.
Fourteen Lines 