The turning of the calendar from one year to the next has always been a time for summing up past experience, bidding farewell to those we have lost, renewing old friendships, making plans and resolutions, and expressing our hopes for the future — all fit subjects for poems, like these classics on New Year’s themes:
- Robert Burns,
“Song—Auld Lang Syne” (1788) - Alfred, Lord Tennyson,
“The Death of the Old Year” (1842) - Alfred, Lord Tennyson,
“Ring Out, Wild Bells” (from In Memoriam A.H.H., 1849) - William Cullen Bryant,
“A Song for New Year’s Eve” (1859) - Emily Dickinson,
“One Year ago — jots what?” (#296) - Christina Rossetti,
“Old and New Year Ditties” (1862) - Helen Hunt Jackson,
“New Year’s Morning” (1892) - Francis Thompson,
“New Year’s Chimes” (1897) - Thomas Hardy,
“The Darkling Thrush” (composed December 31, 1900, published 1902) - Thomas Hardy,
“New Year’s Eve” (1906) - Ella Wheeler Wilcox,
“New Year: A Dialogue” (1909) - Ella Wheeler Wilcox,
“The Year” (1910) - D.H. Lawrence,
“New Year’s Eve” (1917) - D.H. Lawrence,
“New Year’s Night” (1917) - John Clare,
“The Old Year” (1920)
