Happy New Year

New Year’s Eve

Thomas Hardy (1906)

“I have finished another year,” said God,

“In grey, green, white, and brown;

I have strewn the leaf upon the sod,

Sealed up the worm within the clod,

And let the last sun down.”

“And what’s the good of it?” I said.

“What reasons made you call

From formless void this earth we tread,

When nine-and-ninety can be read

Why nought should be at all?

“Yea, Sire; why shaped you us, ‘who in

This tabernacle groan’—

If ever a joy be found herein,

Such joy no man had wished to win

If he had never known!”

Then he: “My labours—logicless—

You may explain; not I:

Sense-sealed I have wrought, without a guess

That I evolved a Consciousness

To ask for reasons why.

“Strange that ephemeral creatures who

By my own ordering are,

Should see the shortness of my view,

Use ethic tests I never knew,

Or made provision for!”

He sank to raptness as of yore,

And opening New Year’s Day

Wove it by rote as theretofore,

And went on working evermore

In his unweeting way.

And shell bring to you all the best from this World