The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (ed. Hutchinson, 1914)/Dirge for the Year
POEMS WRITTEN IN 1821
DIRGE FOR THE YEAR
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, Posthumous Poems, 1824, and dated January 1, 1821.]
IOrphan 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, 5Mocking your untimely weeping.
IIAs an earthquake rocks a corseIn its coffin in the clay, So White Winter, that rough nurse, Rocks the death-cold Year today; 10Solemn Hours! wail aloud For your mother in her shroud.
IIIAs the wild air stirs and sways The tree-swung cradle of a child,So the breath of these rude days 15Rocks the Year:—becalm and mild,Trembling Hours, she will ariseWith new love within her eyes.
IVJanuary gray is here,Like a sexton by her grave; 20February bears the bier,March with grief doth howl and rave, And April weeps—but, ye Hours! Follow with May's fairest flowers.