The whistles blow and through the city street The motor pack in deep, full-throated cry Hunts down an unreturning year. The View Halloo in savage, tom-tom beat Drifts from the night club and the sigh And moan Of saxophone Assault my ear. In locked embrace the dancers sway, and croon A torchsong to the air of Auld Lang Syne And, thumb to nose, in wine as flat As life, salute the New Year's honeymoon. Oh, strange oblation to a newborn shrine! Dry gin, Synthetic grin And a paper hat! Across the years I meet your answering look And all the pagan din is strangely still. The music's blatant, negroid score Dreams to the murmur of an ice-bound brook The close room mists into a moon-white hill Through firelight's glow On drifted snow The New Year enters at a cottage door. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...LAMENT FOR [THE DEATH OF] THOMAS DAVIS by SAMUEL FERGUSON ACROSS THE SEA by WILLIAM ALLINGHAM ULYSSES BUILDS HIS BED by JEAN DE BOSSCHERE MAXIMS FOR THE OLD HOUSE: THE PLASTER ON THE CHIMNEY by ANNA HEMPSTEAD BRANCH ADDRESS TO DUMOURIER by ROBERT BURNS THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN by GEORGE CANNING EPITAPH ON THE LADY SALTER, WIFE TO SIR WILLIAM SALTER by THOMAS CAREW |