From the pall-like folds of the cold gray cloud
Fast fall the flakes of the feathery snow;
The weave for the dying year his shroud,
And we hear his dirge as the wild winds blow.
Over the hills and the waters dark,
Over the forests now stript and bare,
Through the silent sky where erst the lark
Sang, as he soared in his freedom there.
Fall ever and faster the snow flakes white,
And the Old Year’s blood grows torpid & chill,
Like the midnight winds with a death blow, mute
The doomed one, as they sweep the hill.
When the morning came, clear, still & cold,
There the woods their silver crowns uplift,
Say the Old Year, dead – and with many a fold
Was his pall spread o’er him – the cold, white drift.
