best new year jokes, and best new year wishes.
1. Burning the Old Year, by Naomi Shihab Nye
Excerpt from Burning the Old Year:
Letters swallow themselves in seconds.
Notes friends tied to the doorknob,
transparent scarlet paper,
sizzle like moth wings,
marry the air.
So much of any year is flammable,
lists of vegetables, partial poems.
Orange swirling flame of days,
so little is a stone.
2. On new year’s eve, by EVIE SHOCKLEY
Excerpt from On New Year's Eve:
we make midnight a maquette of the year:
frostlight glinting off snow to solemnize
the vows we offer to ourselves in near
silence: the competition shimmerwise
of champagne and chandeliers to attract
laughter and cheers: the glow from the fireplace
reflecting the burning intra-red pact
between beloveds: we cosset the space
3. A Song for New Year's Eve, by William Cullen Bryant - 1794-1878
Excerpt from A Song for New Year's Eve:
Stay yet, my friends, a moment stay—
Stay till the good old year,
So long companion of our way,
Shakes hands, and leaves us here.
Oh stay, oh stay,
One little hour, and then away.
The year, whose hopes were high and strong,
Has now no hopes to wake;
Yet one hour more of jest and song
For his familiar sake.
Oh stay, oh stay,
One mirthful hour, and then away.
4. The Old Year, by John Clare - 1793-1864
Excerpt from 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.
5. The Passing of the Year, by Robert W. Service - 1874-1958
Excerpt from The Passing of the Year:
My glass is filled, my pipe is lit,
My den is all a cosy glow;
And snug before the fire I sit,
And wait to feel the old year go.
I dedicate to solemn thought
Amid my too-unthinking days,
This sober moment, sadly fraught
With much of blame, with little praise.
6. In Tenebris, by Ford Madox Ford - 1873-1939
Excerpt from In Tenebris:
All within is warm,
Here without it's very cold,
Now the year is grown so old
And the dead leaves swarm.
In your heart is light,
Here without it's very dark,
When shall I hear the lark?
When see aright?
7. The Year, By Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Excerpt from The Year: What can be said in New Year rhymes, That’s not been said a thousand times? The new years come, the old years go, We know we dream, we dream we know. We rise up laughing with the light, We lie down weeping with the night8. At the New Year, By Kenneth Patchen
In the shape of this night, in the still fall of snow, Father In all that is cold and tiny, these little birds and children In everything that moves tonight, the trolleys and the lovers, Father In the great hush of country, in the ugly noise of our cities.
9. Year’s End , By Richard Wilbur
Now winter downs the dying of the year, And night is all a settlement of snow; From the soft street the rooms of houses show A gathered light, a shapen atmosphere, Like frozen-over lakes whose ice is thin And still allows some stirring down within
10. Mild is the Parting Year, By Walter Savage Landor
Excerpt from Mild is the Parting Year
Mild is the parting year, and sweet The odour of the falling spray; Life passes on more rudely fleet, And balmless is its closing day.
