New Year’s Eve: Inspiring Poems For Fresh Beginning

It’s the last day for the year 2017. It's time to say goodbye and bid farewell to the old year and ring in to the New Year 2018. This is the time to work on new resolutions and prepare for the next year to make it happier. Here are some inspirational poems to up your spirit to usher in the New Year.

A Farewell

Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea,
Thy tribute wave deliver:
No more by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.

Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea,
A rivulet then a river:
Nowhere by thee my steps shall be
For ever and for ever.

But here will sigh thine alder tree
And here thine aspen shiver;
And here by thee will hum the bee,
For ever and for ever.

A thousand suns will stream on thee,
A thousand moons will quiver;
But not by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.

– Alfred, Lord Tennyson

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.

The kindly year, his liberal hands

Have lavished all his store.

And shall we turn from where he stands,

Because he gives no more?

Oh stay, oh stay,

One grateful hour, and then away.

Days brightly came and calmly went,

While yet he was our guest;

How cheerfully the week was spent!

How sweet the seventh day’s rest!

Oh stay, oh stay,

One golden hour, and then away.

Dear friends were with us, some who sleep

Beneath the coffin-lid:

What pleasant memories we keep

Of all they said and did!

Oh stay, oh stay,

One tender hour, and then away.

Even while we sing, he smiles his last,

And leaves our sphere behind.

The good old year is with the past;

Oh be the new as kind!

Oh stay, oh stay,

One parting strain, and then away.

– William Cullen Bryant, 1794-1878

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

of a fey hour, anxious gods molding our

hoped-for adams with this temporal clay:

each of us edacious for shining or

rash enough to think sacrifice will stay

this fugacious time: while stillness suspends

vitality in balance, as passions

struggle with passions for sway, the mind wends

towards what’s to come: a callithump of fashions,

ersatz smiles, crowded days: a bloodless cut

that severs soul from bone: a long aching

quiet in which we will hear nothing but

the clean crack of our promises breaking.

– Evie Shockley

New Year’s Eve

There are only two things now,
The great black night scooped out
And this fireglow.

This fireglow, the core,
And we the two ripe pips
That are held in store.

Listen, the darkness rings
As it circulates round our fire.
Take off your things.

Your shoulders, your bruised throat!
You breasts, your nakedness!
This fiery coat!

As the darkness flickers and dips,
As the firelight falls and leaps
From your feet to your lips!

– David Herbert Lawrence