Contents -Volume INDEX -AUTHOR INDEX -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889

The New Year

By Maybury Fleming (b. 1853)

ASHES of oak—Are there no more trees?

What if the Yule-log whiten and die—

Blaze and redden and die—what then?

Are there no more trees?

Fallen from pride and gray with fire,

Slain by it, never to glow again—

But life is more than ashes and night;

In it lies new fire.

No trees left? Let the old year go,

And the old years go, with their bloom and blight;

Sated with joy and drunk with pain,

Let the old year go.

Ended at last—and to come, more trees,

Leaf and pleasure and—ay, and grief.

Over dead ashes light new fire—

Are there no more trees?