Explore "December" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Upon December's windy portico / The Old Year stood, and looked out where the sun / Went wading down the West, through drifting clouds. / ‘I, too, shall sink full soon to rest,' he sighed, / ‘And follow where my children's feet have trod; / Brave January, beauteous May and June, / My lovely daughters, and my valiant sons, / All, all save one, have left me for that bourne / Men call the Past. It seems but yesterday / I saw fair August, laughing with the Sea, / Snaring the Earth with her seductive wiles, / And making conquest, even of the Sun. / Yet has she gone, and left me here to mourn. ' / Then spake December, from an open door: / ‘Father, the night grows cold; come in and rest. / Sit with me here beside this glowing grate; / I have not left thee; thou art not alone; / My house is thine; all warm with love and light, / And bright with holly and with cedar sweet. / My stalwart arm is thine to lean upon; / The feast is spread, I only wait for thee; / God smiles upon thy dead, smile thou on me. ' / Then through the open door the Old Year passed / And darkness settled on the outer world.