THE CHILD YEAR

I

"Dying of hunger and sorrow:
I die for my youth I fear!"
Murmured the midnight-haunting
Voice of the stricken Year.

There like a child it perished
In the stormy thoroughfare:
The snow with cruel whiteness
Had aged its flowing hair.

Ah, little Year so fruitful,
Ah, child that brought us bliss,
Must we so early lose you--
Our dear hopes end in this?

II

"Too young am I, too tender,
To bear earth's avalanche
Of wrong, that grinds down life-hope,