A New Year's Plaint by James Whitcomb Riley

In words like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er, / Like coarsest clothes against the cold; / But that large grief which these enfold / Is given in outline and no more.

TENNYSON.

The bells that lift their yawning throats / And lolling tongues with wrangling cries / Flung up in harsh, discordant notes, / As though in anger, at the skies, -- / Are filled with echoings replete, / With purest tinkles of delight -- / So I would have a something sweet / Ring in the song I sing to-night.

As when a blotch of ugly guise / On some poor artist's naked floor / Becomes a picture in his eyes, / And he forgets that he is poor, -- / So I look out upon the night, / That ushers in the dawning year, / And in a vacant blur of light / I see these fantasies appear.

I see a home whose windows gleam / Like facets of a mighty gem / That some poor king's distorted dream / Has fastened in his diadem.

And I behold a throng that reels / In revelry of dance and mirth, / With hearts of love beneath their heels, / And in their bosoms hearts of earth.

O Luxury, as false and grand / As in the mystic tales of old, / When genii answered man's command, / And built of nothing halls of gold!

O Banquet, bright with pallid jets, / And tropic blooms, and vases caught / In palms of naked statuettes, / Ye can not color as ye ought!

For, crouching in the storm without, / I see the figure of a child, / In little ragged roundabout, / Who stares with eyes that never smiled -- / And he, in fancy can but taste / The dainties of the kingly fare, / And pick the crumbs that go to waste / Where none have learned to kneel in prayer.

Go, Pride, and throw your goblet down -- / The "merry greeting" best appears / On loving lips that never drown / Its worth but in the wine of tears; / Go, close your coffers like your hearts, / And shut your hearts against the poor, / Go, strut through all your pretty parts / But take the "Welcome" from your door.