the New Year, the decorations of lobster, signifying
reproduction, cabbages indicating riches, and oranges, meaning good
luck, are taken down and replaced with boughs of fruit trees and
flowers.

Strange indeed is the country in which the milestones of Time pass
unheeded. In spite of all the mirth and feasting, there is an
undercurrent of sadness which has been most fitly expressed by Charles
Lamb:

"Of all the sounds, the most solemn and touching is the peal
which rings out the old year. I never hear it without
gathering up in my mind a concentration of all the images
that have been diffused over the past twelve months; all
that I have done or suffered, performed, or neglected, in
that regretted time. I begin to know its worth as when a
person dies. It takes a personal colour, nor was it a
poetical flight in a contemporary, when he exclaimed: 'I saw
the skirts of the departing year!'"

The Two Years

Tread softly, ye throngs with hurrying feet,
Look down, O ye stars, in your flight,
And bid ye farewell to a time that was sweet,
For the year lies a-dying to-night.

In a shroud of pure snow lie the quickly-fled hours--
The children of Time and of Light;
Stoop down, ye fair moon, and scatter sweet flowers,
For the year lies a-dying to-night.

Hush, O ye rivers that sweep to the sea,
From hill and from blue mountain height;
The flood of your song should be sorrow, not glee,
For the year lies a-dying to-night.

Good night, and good-bye, dear, mellow, old year,
The new is beginning to dawn.
But we'll turn and drop on thy white grave a tear,
For the sake of the friend that is gone.

All hail to the New! He is coming with gladness,
From the East, where in light he reposes;
He is bringing a year free from pain and from sadness,
He is bringing a June with her roses.

A burst of sweet music, the listeners hear,
The stars and the angels give warning--
He is coming in beauty, this joyful New Year,
O'er the flower-strewn stairs of the morning.

He is bringing a day with glad pulses beating,
For the sorrow and passion are gone,
And Love and Life have a rapturous meeting
In the rush and the gladness of dawn.

The Old has gone out with a crown that is hoary,
The New in his brightness dr