The Year by Ella Wheeler Wilcox (a Happy New One to You!)

The December holidays, however you observe them, bring with them the closing of a year, or perhaps of a season, even if our winter is to go on a little while longer. And while the holidays give us pause to reflect on what has come and gone, they also give us cause to look toward a new collection of reasons to hope.

Enjoy your holiday celebrations and this selection from Ella Wheeler Wilcox, and we’ll see you back here again after that new year has come—on January 2nd.

The Year

What can be said in New Year rhymes,
That’s not been said a thousand times?

The new years come, the old years go,
We know we dream, we dream we know.

We rise up laughing with the light,
We lie down weeping with the night.

We hug the world until it stings,
We curse it then and sigh for wings.

We live, we love, we woo, we wed,
We wreathe our brides, we sheet our dead.

We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear,
And that’s the burden of the year.

—Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Photo by Hannes Flo, Creative Commons license via Flickr. Poem is in the public domain.