Cold swept the withering blasts of fall
 O'er herbage green, and sheltering tree;
Thro' naked boughs the gleaning winds
 Are howling mournfully.

Cold drives snow-muffling Boreas
 Outside of comfort's well-barr'd door;
Cold as thy presence is thy name,
 December, to the poor.

Cold gleam the stars at night; afar,
 High in the north, the Dipper shines,
As if 'twere dripping with the wealth
 Of Californian mines.

Ah! wanderer to the auric shore!
 Sunk from thy sight yon cluster glows;
So hope's bright phantom, chased by thee,
 Round earth's rotunda goes.

A year's a type of human life;
 December truly symbols age;
A year is like a volume read,
 And this the final page.

A year is like a beaten road,
 O'er which, as travellers, we wend
Our way amid its changeful scenes,
 And this the journey's end.

A year is like a lengthened day;
 It has its dawn, its noon, its night;
December is the sunset scene,
 Pale glimmering on the sight.

A year is like a stream that flows
 Thro' varied clime and scenery,
To find oblivion in the deep—
 And this the opening sea.

A year is like the implement
 The patriarch in vision found,
Spaced by twelve steps, in place of three—
 And this the lowest round.

Reared 'gainst time's shadowy battlements
 It leans, dissolving to the view;
Ho! climber, chiseling a name!
 'Tis gone, and yours, and you!

O, could one lift the solemn veil
 That shrouds the mighty Past, and see
Departed years in centuries piled—
 The coins of Deity;

And could he see as in a glass
 All the great family of man,
Those whose desires encompassed earth,
 Now under Lethe's ban;

Lost and unknown with all their deeds,
 Lost and unknown with all their fame,—
Less would he strive to write upon
 Time's flying scroll his name.

But rather this: that when the years
 To him allotted, all are told,
He may on Heaven's ledger find
 His credit good enrolled.