The Old Year knocks at the farmhouse door. <br />October, come with your matron gaze, <br />From the fruit you are storing for winter days, <br />And prop him up on the granary floor, <br />Where the straw lies threshed and the corn stands heaped: <br />Let him eat of the bread he reaped; <br />He is feeble and faint, and can work no more. <br /> <br />Weaker he waneth, and weaker yet. <br />November, shower your harvest down, <br />Chestnut, and mast, and acorn brown; <br />For you he laboured, so pay the debt. <br />Make him a pallet-he cannot speak- <br />And a pillow of moss for his pale pinched cheek, <br />With your golden leaves for coverlet. <br /> <br />He is numb to touch, he is deaf to call. <br />December, hither with muffled tread, <br />And gaze on the Year, for the Year is dead, <br />And over him cast a wan white pall. <br />Take down the mattock, and ply the spade. <br />And deep in the clay let his clay be laid, <br />And snowflakes fall at his funeral. <br /> <br />Thus may I die, since it must be, <br />My wage well earned and my work-days done, <br />And the seasons following one by one <br />To the slow sweet end that the wise foresee; <br />Fed from the store of my ripened sheaves, <br />Laid to rest on my fallen leaves, <br />And with snow-white souls to weep for me.<br /><br />Alfred Austin<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/as-dies-the-year/
