New Year's Eve Poems: Inspiring And Funny Verses, Including The Classic Auld Sang Lyne

For old times sake, it's time to reflect on 2016 and start working on new traditions and memories for 2017. Prepare yourself for the next 12 months with some insightful poems that honor the holiday spirit.

You can keep it traditional with the 1788 Scots poem by Robert Burns, which calls for cherishing old, dear friendships. Or try something less famous for a fresh take on the passage of time.

"New Year's Poem"

By Margaret Avison

The Christmas twigs crispen and needles rattle

Along the window-ledge.

A solitary pearl

Shed from the necklace spilled at last week’s party

Lies in the suety, snow-luminous plainness

Of morning, on the window-ledge beside them.

And all the furniture that circled stately

And hospitable when these rooms were brimmed

With perfumes, furs, and black-and-silver

Crisscross of seasonal conversation, lapses

Into its previous largeness.

I remember

Anne’s rose-sweet gravity, and the stiff grave

Where cold so little can contain;

I mark the queer delightful skull and crossbones

Starlings and sparrows left, taking the crust,

And the long loop of winter wind

Smoothing its arc from dark Arcturus down

To the bricked corner of the drifted courtyard,

And the still window-ledge.

Gentle and just pleasure

It is, being human, to have won from space

This unchill, habitable interior

Which mirrors quietly the light

Of the snow, and the new year.

"Burning the Old Year"

By Naomi Shihab Nye

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.

Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,

an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.

I begin again with the smallest numbers.

Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,

only the things I didn’t do

crackle after the blazing dies.

"December 31st"

BY Richard Hoffman

All my undone actions wander

naked across the calendar,

a band of skinny hunter-gatherers,

blown snow scattered here and there,

stumbling toward a future

folded in the New Year I secure

with a pushpin: January’s picture

a painting from the 17th century,

a still life: Skull and mirror,

spilled coin purse and a flower.

"Auld Lang Syne"

By Robert Burns

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and auld lang syne?

CHORUS:For auld lang syne, my jo,for auld lang syne,we’lltak' a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

And surely ye’ll be your pint-stoup!
and surely I’ll be mine!
And we’ll tak' a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

CHORUS

We twa hae run about the braes,
and pou’d the gowans fine;
But we’ve wander’d mony a weary fit,
sin' auld lang syne.

CHORUS

We twa hae paidl’d in the burn,
frae morning sun till dine;
But seas between us braid hae roar’d
sin' auld lang syne.

CHORUS

And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere!
and gie's a hand o’ thine!
And we’ll tak' a right gude-willie waught,
for auld lang syne.

CHORUS