I <br />'Dying of hunger and sorrow: <br />I die for my youth I fear!' <br />Murmured the midnight-haunting <br />Voice of the stricken Year. <br />There like a child it perished <br />In the stormy thoroughfare: <br />The snow with cruel whiteness <br />Had aged its flowing hair. <br />Ah, little Year so fruitful, <br />Ah, child that brought us bliss, <br />Must we so early lose you— <br />Our dear hopes end in this? <br />II <br />'Too young am I, too tender, <br />To bear earth's avalanche <br />Of wrong, that grinds down life-hope, <br />And makes my heart's-blood blanch. <br />'Tell him who soon shall follow <br />Where my tired feet have bled, <br />He must be older, shrewder, <br />Hard, cold, and selfish-bred— <br />'Or else like me be trampled <br />Under the harsh world's heel. <br />'Tis weakness to be youthful; <br />'Tis death to love and feel.' <br />III <br />Then saw I how the New Year <br />Came like a scheming man, <br />With icy eyes, his forehead <br />Wrinkled by care and plan <br />For trade and rule and profit. <br />To him the fading child <br />Looked up and cried, 'Oh, brother!' <br />But died even while it smiled. <br />Down bent the harsh new-comer <br />To lift with loving arm <br />The wanderer mute and fallen; <br />And lo! his eyes were warm; <br />All changed he grew; the wrinkles <br />Vanished: he, too, looked young— <br />As if that lost child's spirit <br />Into his breast had sprung. <br />So are those lives not wasted, <br />Too frail to bear the fray. <br />So Years may die, yet leave us <br />Young hearts in a world grown gray.<br /><br />George Parsons Lathrop<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-child-year/
