Lyric Poem · Sad

Dirge for the Year

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Reading room

1Orphan Hours, the Year is dead,

2Come and sigh, come and weep!

3Merry Hours, smile instead,

4For the Year is but asleep.

5See, it smiles as it is sleeping,

6Mocking your untimely weeping.

7As an earthquake rocks a corse

8In its coffin in the clay,

9So White Winter, that rough nurse,

10Rocks the death-cold Year to-day;

11Solemn Hours! wail aloud

12For your mother in her shroud.

13As the wild air stirs and sways

14The tree-swung cradle of a child,

15So the breath of these rude days

16Rocks the Year: — be calm and mild,

17Trembling Hours, she will arise

18With new love within her eyes.

19January gray is here,

20Like a sexton by her grave;

21February bears the bier,

22March with grief doth howl and rave,

23And April weeps — but, O ye Hours!

24Follow with May's fairest flowers.

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“Dirge for the Year” by Percy Bysshe Shelley — quilloak.com/poems/dirge-for-the-year

Quick facts

Poem: Dirge for the Year
Poet: Percy Bysshe Shelley
Length: 24 lines
Form: Lyric Poem
Themes: Sad, Nature, Death & Loss

Craft notes

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Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.

Shape: 24 lines · 4 sestets
Line length: Mostly 7-syllable lines.

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Author record: Percy Bysshe Shelley1792–1822
Source record: PoetryDBDirge for the Year by percy-bysshe-shelley, PoetryDB transcription
Display decision: Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
Publication record: Not recorded in the imported source
Text fingerprint: SHA-256 315077f317ae0922…
Editorial handling: Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.

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Lyric Poem Sad Nature Death & Loss

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