The Old Year and the New
Richard Ball
Rutter
Rutter, Richard Ball
R. R.
Metadata research and editing
DVPP Project Team
Fralick
Kaitlyn
University of Victoria Digital Victorian Periodical Poetry Project
Victoria, BC, Canada
In the public domain
Poet attribution: the Chambers’s Journal ledger entry lists the author as R. B. Rutter, 2 Garden Terrace, Newcastle on Tyne, with the payment given as 10s 6d (NLS 341/310). (AC)
Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal
3
13
314
16
The reign of the Year is drawing to a close !
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The Old Year and the Ne
w.
The reign of the Year is drawing to a close !
Dejected and alone
The Monarch quits his throne
For the region of a passionless repose.
He has dropped from his hand
His globe of silver sand,
To whiten our tresses as he goes ;
His pall has been spread
With holly-berries red,
And his shroud has been woven from the snows.
Who o’er the hills of the morning advances,
Hope in his footstep, and joy in his eyes—
Lord of the future, Disposer of chances,
Prophet of pleasure, and Soother of sighs ?
This is the son and the heir of the Dead—
This is the king who shall reign in his stead.
Ho ! Brothers, let us sing
Merry welcome to our king,
And crown him with a garland of the vine ;
Let the old strife end,
And the new love blend
With the hopes that are sparkling in our wine.
Full loyally responding to his call,
Before the revels close,
And we vanish at the touches of the Morn like the
elves,
Hand in hand let us stand one and all,
To pledge the coming Monarch, who will grant a crown
to those
Whom he proves to be Monarchs o’er themselves.
R. R.