’Tis the Curfew of the Year, when falls and fades the maple’s leafy fire.

’Tis Midnight of the Year, when streams beneath a fretted roof retire.

It is the Small Hours of the Year, when none of all that sleep will wake,

Howe’er the legion storms of heaven their deep and hidden fastness shake.

It is the Dark Hour ere the Dawn, when, through the growing rifts of sleep,

The wistful-eyed and moaning dreams of other days begin to peep.

But when, amid the softening rain, aloft, so mellow and so clear,

The first flute of the robin sounds, it is the Daybreak of the Year!