Classic Poem

DAYBREAK upon the snow,
Cold wintry wild below,
Above, the grey sky, cloudless and serene:
No voices but the blast,
Which, roaring, hurrying past,
Strives, like a giant, with the pine-clump green.

The daisy bows its head
At the great thunderer's tread.
And the first primrose shivers as with fear.
Rushes the brooklet by,
Swoln, turbid, fierce, bank-high,
With tumbling song-waves for the new-born Year;

Coming when midnight peal'd,
Black over fen and field,
Now, for the first hour, breaking into light:
And solemn tones appear
To affect my listening ear,
Roll'd from the glen, and echoed from the height.

" O, live the new year well;
Glean truth from Wisdom's cell;
Comfort thy fellow-man, who walks through tears:
Search much the Book Divine;
Watch, pray, believe, and thine
Is rest in heaven, at the full end of years! "