Sonnet 42: Lo! The Year's Final Day!--Nature Performs

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Title:     Sonnet 42: Lo! The Year's Final Day!--Nature Performs
Author: Anna Seward [More Titles by Seward]

Lo! the YEAR's FINAL DAY!--Nature performs
Its obsequies with darkness, wind, and rain;
But Man is jocund.--Hark! th' exultant strain
From towers and steeples drowns the wintry storms!
No village spire but to the cots and farms,
Right merrily, its scant and tuneless peal
Rings round!--Ah! joy ungrateful!--mirth insane!
Wherefore the senseless triumph, ye, who feel
This annual portion of brief Life the while
Depart for ever?--Brought it no dear hours
Of health and night-rest?--none that saw the smile
On lips belov'd?--O! with as gentle powers
Will the next pass?--Ye pause!--yet careless hear
Strike these last Clocks, that knell th' EXPIRING YEAR!

Dec. 31st, 1782.

[The end]
Anna Seward's poem: Sonnet 42: Lo! The Year's Final Day!--Nature Performs

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