Friends, I am only merry for an hour or two Upon a birthday: if this life of ours Be a good glad thing, why should we make us merry Because a year of it is gone? but Hope Smiles from the threshold of the year to come Whispering 'It will be happier;' and old faces Press round us, and warm hands close with warm hands, And thro' the blood the wine leaps to the brain Like April sap to the topmost tree, that shoots New buds to heaven, whereon the throstle rock'd Sings a new song to the new year — and you,Strike up a song, my friends, and then to bed.

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