Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882). Complete Poetical Works. 1893.

Voices of the Night

Midnight Mass for the Dying Year

Published in the Knickerbocker as The Fifth Psalm the author also calls it in his diary An Autumnal Chant.

YES, the Year is growing old,

And his eye is pale and bleared!

Death, with frosty hand and cold,

Plucks the old man by the beard,

Sorely, sorely!

The leaves are falling, falling,

Solemnly and slow;

Caw! caw! the rooks are calling,

It is a sound of woe,

A sound of woe!

Through woods and mountain passes

The winds, like anthems, roll;

They are chanting solemn masses,

Singing, “Pray for this poor soul,

Pray, pray!”

And the hooded clouds, like friars,

Tell their beads in drops of rain,

And patter their doleful prayers;

But their prayers are all in vain,

All in vain!

There he stands in the foul weather,

The foolish, fond Old Year,

Crowned with wild flowers and with heather,

Like weak, despisèd Lear,

A king, a king!

Then comes the summer-like day,

Bids the old man rejoice!

His joy! his last! Oh, the old man gray

Loveth that ever-soft voice,

Gentle and low.

To the crimson woods he saith,

To the voice gentle and low

Of the soft air, like a daughter’s breath,

“Pray do not mock me so!

Do not laugh at me!”

And now the sweet day is dead;

Cold in his arms it lies;

No stain from its breath is spread

Over the glassy skies,

No mist or stain!

Then, too, the Old Year dieth,

And the forests utter a moan,

Like the voice of one who crieth

In the wilderness alone,

“Vex not his ghost!”

Then comes, with an awful roar,

Gathering and sounding on,

The storm-wind from Labrador,

The wind Euroclydon,

The storm-wind!

Howl! howl! and from the forest

Sweep the red leaves away!

Would the sins that thou abhorrest,

O soul! could thus decay,

And be swept away!

For there shall come a mightier blast,

There shall be a darker day;

And the stars, from heaven down-cast

Like red leaves be swept away!

Kyrie, eleyson!

Christe, eleyson!