The New Year - Rabindranath Tagore

Like fruit, shaken free by an impatient wind
from the veils of its mother flower,
thou comest, New Year, whirling in a frantic dance
amid the stampede of the wind-lashed clouds
and infuriate showers,
while trampled by thy turbulence
are scattered away the faded and the frail
in an eddying agony of death.
Thou art no dreamer afloat on a languorous breeze,
lingering among the hesitant whisper and hum
of an uncertain season.
Thine is a majestic march, o terrible Stranger,
thundering forth an ominous incantation,
driving the days on to the perils of a pathless dark,
where thou carriest a dumb signal in thy banner,
a decree of destiny undeciphered.

---

Rabindranath Tagore (1861 - 1941) India