Posted on 12/31/2018 7:56:43 PM PST by TBP
For last year's words belong to last year's language And next year's words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning. ~T.S. Eliot, "Little Gidding"
New Year Carol, music by Benjamin Britten, sung by the Columbus Children’s Choir.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRHrGlTBJ9U
Here we bring new water from the well so clear,
For to worship God with, this happy New Year.
Chorus (after each verse):
Sing levy-dew, sing levy-dew, the water and the wine,
The seven bright gold wires and the bugles that do shine.
Sing reign of Fair Maid, with gold upon her toe;
Open you the West Door and turn the Old Year go.
Sing reign of Fair Maid, with gold upon her chin;
Open you the East Door and let the New Year in.
New Year 2018
The rituals of New Year’s Eve
Are full of contradictions
Some make resolutions
While others make predictions
So even though I know I shouldn’t
(I even swore an oath)
I think perhaps in poetry
I’ll take a crack at both
I’ll exercise religiously
Which should improve my looks
I’ll banish carbohydrates
And sell a lot more books
I won’t obsess on news reports
I’ll watch and then forget
I […]
courtesy of Tarzana Joe. http://www.tarzanajoe.com/
Roses are red. Violets are blue.
You hate Led Zeppelin? Screw you!
What glories of dawn
Break the sibilant air
Golden in the Sun
0ur presidents shining hair
And the glorious stain of red white and blue
On the presidential flag tattoo.
His House is the DC though
He will not see me here
To watch his Swamp fill with sedition
My black limo must think it queer
To stop with out a Democrat near
Between the Swamp and rebellious House
The darkest evening of the year
He gives his EO a shake
To ask if there is more to take
The only sounds the weep
Of the MSM and Jeff Flake
The Swamp is nasty, dark and deep
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep
And miles to go before I sleep
TO my fellow sinners all, who, in hope and doubt,
Through the Commonwealth to-night watch the Old Year out,
New Year’s Resolutions are jerry-built I know,
But I want to say to you, “Give yourselves a show”.
You who drink for drinking’s sake, love for lust alone,
Thinking heaven is a myth and the world your own—
Dancing gaily down to hell in the devil’s dance—
This I have to say to you: “Give your souls a chance”.
You who drink because of shame that you think will last,
Or because of wrong done you—trouble in the past—
“Nothing left to live for now,” you will say, I know;
But you have your own self yet, give that self a show!
You who want all things on earth—money, love, and fame
Having the advantage of worldly place or name—
You who have more than you want, even than you know,
In the glorious New Year give someone else a show.
You, the mischief-makers all, who in secret glee
Love to tell the villainies of a scamp like me;
There are things he’ll never tell—things you’ll never know—
Look into your own lives first—give the man a show.
You, the politician, who, for jealousy or gold,
Or for mean ambition, sell, or see your country sold,
Pandering to the hollow crowd, toadying to the low,
For shame’s sake banish selfishness—give your land a show.
Henry Lawson
Yes, I really enjoy watching that too, but this year we put on a movie and watched it as our latest blizzard began to deposit another 20 cm. No signs of global warming here!
Bears repeating!
*********************
You, the politician, who, for jealousy or gold,
Or for mean ambition, sell, or see your country sold,
Pandering to the hollow crowd, toadying to the low,
For shame’s sake banish selfishness—give your land a show
Henry Lawson
NEW YEAR’S DAY
by Billy Collins
Everyone has two birthdays
according to the English essayist Charles Lamb,
the day you were born and New Year’s Day—
a droll observation to mull over
as I wait for the tea water to boil in a kitchen
that is being transformed by the morning light
into one of those brilliant rooms of Matisse.
“No one ever regarded the First of January
with indifference,” writes Lamb,
for unlike Groundhog Day or the feast of the Annunciation,
this one marks nothing but the passage of time,
I realized, as I lowered a tin diving bell
of tea leaves into a little body of roiling water.
I admit to regarding my own birthday
as the joyous anniversary of my existence
probably because I was, and remain
to this day in late December, an only child.
And as an only child—
a tea-sipping, toast-nibbling only child
in a colorful room this morning—
I would welcome an extra birthday,
one more opportunity to stop what we are doing
for a moment and reflect on my being here on earth.
And one more birthday might be a consolation
to us all for having to face a death-day, too,
an X in a square
on some kitchen calendar of the future,
the day when each of us is thrown off the train of time
by a burly, heartless conductor
as it roars through the months and years,
party hats, candles, confetti, and horoscopes
billowing up in the turbulent storm of its wake.
.
.
. from the book, “Ballistics,” © Random House 2008
Happy New Year! May it be interesting if nothing else...
MAGA!!! KAG!!!! (saw that on a Black gentlemean's hat in Walmart)
Great poem.
Happy New Year, old friend!
Happy New Year to you, and good health my FRiend.
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