The New Year
Be welcome, year! with corn and sickle come;Make poor the body, but make rich the heart:What man that bears his sheaves, gold-nodding, home,Will heed the paint rubbed from his groaning cart!
Nor leave behind thy fears and holy shames,Thy sorrows on the horizon hanging low--Gray gathered fuel for the sunset-flamesWhen joyous in death's harvest-home we go.
About this text
The New Year is in the public domain. This text is taken from The poetical works of George MacDonald in two volumes — Volume 2, Project Gutenberg ebook #9984; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: George MacDonald, The New Year, in A Microcosm in Terza Rima, and Other Poems (1893), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #9984, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/macdonald-poems/the-new-year.html, id L22365.
Form and metre
The New Year is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABAB comeA · heartB · homeA · cartB
- 2 ABAB shamesA · lowB · flamesA · goB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Be welcome, year! with corn and sickle come; | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Make poor the body, but make rich the heart: | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| What man that bears his sheaves, gold-nodding, home, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Will heed the paint rubbed from his groaning cart! | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Nor leave behind thy fears and holy shames, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Thy sorrows on the horizon hanging low-- | 11 | ·/˘··˘/˘/˘· |
| Gray gathered fuel for the sunset-flames | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/·· |
| When joyous in death's harvest-home we go. | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.