Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, DIRGE FOR THE YEAR, by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

DIRGE FOR THE YEAR, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Orphan hours, the year is dead
Last Line: Follow with may's fairest flowers.
Subject(s): Holidays; New Year


Orphan hours, the year is dead!
Come and sigh, come and weep!
Merry hours, smile instead,
For the year is but asleep;
See, it smiles as it is sleeping.
Mocking your untimely weeping.

As an earthquake rocks a corse
In its coffin in the clay,
So White Winter, that rough nurse,
Rocks the death-cold year to-day;
Solemn hours! wail aloud
For your mother in her shroud.

As the wild air stirs and sways
The tree-swung cradle of a child,
So the breath of these rude days
Rocks the year: -- be calm and mild,
Trembling hours; she will arise
With new love within her eyes.

January gray is here,
Like a sexton by her grave;
February bears the beir,
March with grief doth howl and rave,
And April weeps -- but, O ye hours!
Follow with May's fairest flowers.







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