✦ Have a Poem with Me

## A Winter Blue Jay

# Sara Teasdale



Crisply the bright snow whispered,

Crunching beneath our feet;

Behind us as we walked along the parkway,

Our shadows danced,

Fantastic shapes in vivid blue.

Across the lake the skaters

Flew to and fro,

With sharp turns weaving

A frail invisible net.

In ecstasy the earth

Drank the silver sunlight;

In ecstasy the skaters

Drank the wine of speed;

In ecstasy we laughed

Drinking the wine of love.

Had not the music of our joy

Sounded its highest note?

But no,

For suddenly, with lifted eyes you said,

“Oh look!”

There, on the black bough of a snow flecked maple,

Fearless and gay as our love,

A bluejay cocked his crest!

Oh who can tell the range of joy

Or set the bounds of beauty?

## *The Year*

# Ella Wheeler Wilcox



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 night.

We hug the world until it stings,

We curse it then and sigh for wings.



We live, we love, we woo, we wed,

We wreathe our brides, we sheet our dead.

We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear,

And that's the burden of the year.