four new seasons that were to be ours but one remains:

And here is but December left and I,
To wonder if the hawthorn bloomed in May,
And if the wild rose with so fine a flush
Mantled the cheek of June, and if the way
The stream went singing foamed with meadow sweet,
And if the throstle sang in yonder bush,
And if the lark dizzied with song the sky.
I watched and listened--yet so sweet, so fleet,
The mad young year went by!

Strange, that feeling at the end of the year that somehow we have missed
it, have failed to experience it all to the full, taken it too
carelessly, not dwelt sufficiently on its rich, expressive hours. Each
year we feel the same, and however intent we may have been, however we
have watched and listened, sensitively eager to hold and exhaust each
passing moment, when the year-end has come, we seem somehow to have been
cheated after all. Who, at the beginning of each year, has not promised
himself a stricter attentiveness to his experience? This year he will
"load every rift with ore."

This year, I said, when first along the lane
With tiny nipples of the tender green
The winter-blackened hedge grew bright again,
This year I watch and listen; I have seen
So many springs steal profitless away,
This year I garner every sound and sweet.
And you, young year, make not such haste to bring
Hawthorn and rose; nor jumble, indiscreet,