December
By William B. Tappan
Farewell, December! cheerless as thou art,
Arrayed in gloom, thou hast for me no smile;
Thou canst not whisper pleasure to this heart,
Thy aspect cannot life’s sad ills beguile.
O’er thee, the sombre child of Winter, stern,
Nature is weeping in funereal gloom;
Cheerless the trophies that adorn thy urn;
Cold are the rites that consecrate thy tomb.
Farewell, December! and with thee, the year,―
Another year, that ends its course with thee;
Another year that’s severed from my span,
Lost in the embrace of dark Eternity.
What hopes and fears, what schemes of future bliss
Have sparkled on the past with fairy gleam!
Futile those schemes, and false each hope, for this
Brief life is but the shadow of a dream.
Farewell, December!—Ere in frowns, again
Thou reign’st, the empress of the howling storm,
Perhaps this bosom, free from secret pain.
May rest in quiet;—this unconscious form
May pillow kindly on its lowly bed,
And know ofgrief no more.—Will’t not be sweet,
When gently called by an approving God,
On yonder peaceful shore to rest the weary feet?
