With apologies to Yeats and Hardy

Covered and covered by dregs of Winter
The ancient pulse of birth is dried and hard;
Day’s eye is weak; the frost is spectre-grey;
The sky appears a broken lyre; everywhere
The Century’s corpse lies upon the land;
The best spirits are fervourless, while the worst
Have retreated back to their household fires.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the New Year is at hand.
The New Year! Hardly are those words out
When a sound from the cloudy canopy
Troubles my ear: somewhere in the bleak twigs
A voice full-hearted and with ecstacy,
A sound joyful, and strong as the wind,
Is raised in evensong, while all about it
The snowy blast beruffles small, gaunt birds.
The gloom grows deeper; but now I know
That twenty centuries of earthly doubts
Were coaxed to sleep by causeless carolings,
And what dark thrush, its hour come round at last,
Trembles its blessed hope upon the air?