The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-01-03 00:00:00

FAREWELL TO THE OLD YEAR

(For the Liverpool Standard.)

Thy changeful face
th shown alternate smiles and tears,

Farewell to thee

isiasening to thy resting-place—
Eternity—the tomb of years !
How strange a tale thy moments tell !
What chequer'd scenes have throng'd thy life
Joy's paean heard with sorrow's knell;
And nature's mingled, ceaseless strife.

The winter snows which thou bast seen,
Soft, blushing spring, the summer's rose,
And autumn, have less varied been
Than views thy transient hours disclose.
A thousand passions that control
The scene of being's busy stage,
That claim dominion o'er the soul,
Have left their story on thy page!

Hast thou not seen the deadly blight
Of poverty's envenom'd breath
'Mid plenty's flow'rs, all gay and bright,
Like a mix'd wreath of life and death?
Oft hath affliction woo'd thy flight,
Hoping that grief with time would flee ;
Whilst pleasure, culling new delight,
As oft bath sued delay from thee.

While some, who hail'd thy mystic birth
With life's young glee and joyous bloom
Have breath'd a sad adieu to earth,

'erets of the tomb

Many, whose welcome was a sigh,
Their path o'erspread with doubt and fear,
Now dwell beneath a cloudless sky,
And kindly bless the dying year!

But thou art gonc, the past to swell,
As ages, ere thy time, have Red—
No wish, no prayer, no potent spell
Makes time retrace his onward tread !
Then fare thee well ! the mirth and woe
That in thy gloom and sunshine dwell—
The scenes that mark thy stay below,
To each, to all, for aye,—Farewell.
Liverpool, Dec. 21,1842.

J. M. L

A WELCOME TO THE NEW YEAR

Though happiness smile not alone on the earth—
Though varied life's landscape around us may be,
No useless lamentings shall darken thy birth ;
Thy presence shall banish the tear and the sigh !
For pleasure thou bringest, with hope, in thy train,
Our homes and our hearts to enliven with glee ;
Though sorrow may visit our pathway again,
We offer our tribute of welcome to thee !

Though winter's stern breath over nature may steal—
Though over creation its mantle it throws,
The warmth of our feelings it cannot congeal—
Joy's sunshine shall sparkle on winter's cold snows !
For spring, at thy bidding, our meadows shall greet,
Thy summer shall smile on the land and the sea,
Thine autumn shall lavish its stores at our feet—
So gaily we offer a—welcome to thee !
Though, screen'd from our vision, futurity hide
The scenes, strange and varied, thy moments may bring,
All gloomy forbodings, forgotten, subside—
Hope kindly gives birth to the notes that we sing!
For fancy, whose colours oft gently have shed
Their hues where all else doubt and darkness would be,
Breathes softly its spell—and the whispers of dread
All melt in an echo of—welcome to thee !
Though ruthless adversity ravage the spot
Where centred our hopes and affections repose,
And chequer with trials and sorrows our lot—
Why should we lament, ere we suffer, our woes ?
For many will hail thee, the donor of good ;
Nor trouble and grief shalt thou only decree ;
Thy pleasures shall flourish where sorrow had stood,
And claim from our feelings—a welcome to thee !

A welcome to thee, then, for weal or for woe!
We know not the fortune that on us may wait ;
But cold is the bosom that feels not the glow,
The thousand strange sympathies thou canst create
If cloudy and stormy thy pilgrimage here,
Our thoughts o'er the future's wide aux face roam,
If life, on thy path, smile serenely and clear,
Oft shall be repeated—a welcome to thee !
Liverpool, Dec. 31, 1842

-------..tilliliP..- --

A PORTRAIT

AFTER ANACREON

Painter! paint me, if you can,
Ireland's sturdy Beggarman.
You shall paint him as I tell you—
With a round and portly belly ;
Brownish wig, well oil'd and curly,
On his nob, so big and burly ;
Let his bronzy eyebrows pass
O'er a forehead gilt with brass ;
And his eyes, as blue as lead,
Peep through rims of gummy red ;
With the expression of the ox,
Mingle well the traits of fox—
So that if their staring fulness
Indicate the bullock's dulness,
Yet their twinkling way of running
May develope Reynard's cunning.
Let his Mug be plump and jolly.
Fat with roguery, more than folly :
Stretch the mouth from ear to ear,
Grinning with a devilish sneer.
Paint the nostrils cocked and spacious—
Snuffing round and round—" sagacious
Of the quarry" near at hand—
That's " his own—his native land."
And to fix expression due
On each lineament and hue,
Let the visage emulate a
Prating lump of a potato,
Then in vesture of his clan.
Rig me this Bull-Beggarman.
On his back's prodigious mould
Be the blanket strapped and rolled ;
From each shoulder hang a sack
Cramm'd till very near it crack.
Hang behind, on either hip,
Here a wallet—there a scrip.
From his neck, be hung, before,
Satchels half a dozen or more;
One for meal and one for salt—
This to hold the tax on malt—

That for pocketing the rent—
The others for the poll-tax mean
And (if not forbid by dirt—s
Pot a pocket in his shirt.
Paint him then with hat it

Vheedling, bluster

g now witt

free—

lv/kiys hoax