‘The Old Year’: A Poem by John Clare
This poem, ‘The Old Year’, by the underrated John Clare (1793-1864) is about bidding farewell to the old year rather than ushering in the new. Indeed, the stanza form is strikingly similar to Thomas Hardy’s later poem ‘The Darkling Thrush’: did Hardy have Clare’s poem in mind when he wrote his 1900 New Year meditation?
The Old Year
The Old Year’s gone away
To nothingness and night:
We cannot find him all the day
Nor hear him in the night:
He left no footstep, mark or place
In either shade or sun:
The last year he’d a neighbour’s face,
In this he’s known by none.
All nothing everywhere:
Mists we on mornings see
Have more of substance when they’re here
And more of form than he.
He was a friend by every fire,
In every cot and hall–
A guest to every heart’s desire,
And now he’s nought at all.
Old papers thrown away,
Old garments cast aside,
The talk of yesterday,
Are things identified;
But time once torn away
No voices can recall:
The eve of New Year’s Day
Left the Old Year lost to all.
If you enjoyed ‘The Old Year’, you might also like John Clare’s poem ‘I Am’.
Posted on January 30, 2019, in Literature and tagged John Clare, Poetry, Post A Poem A Day, The Old Year. Bookmark the permalink. 3 Comments.
I recall my grandmother and great-aunt always referring to December 31st as “Old Year’s Night” rather than “New Year’s Eve”.
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