Comes the New Year; wailing the north winds blow;
In her cold, lonely grave my dead love lies;
Dead lies the stiffened earth beneath the snow,
And blinding sleet blots out the desolate skies;
I stand between the living and the dead;
Hateful to me is life, hateful is death;
Her life was sad, and on that narrow bed
She will not turn, nor wake with human breath.
I kneel between the evil and the good;
The struggle o'er, this one sweet faith have I—
Though life and death be dimly understood,
She loved me; I loved her; love cannot die;
—Go then thy way with thine accustomed cheer,
—Nor heed my churlish greeting, O New Year.