Shelley’s speaker talks to the Hours as if they are children bewildered by the dying of the old year. At first the poem calls for weeping, but immediately undercuts that grief: the Year is only asleep, smiling slyly at their misplaced tears. Winter becomes a rough nurse shaking a coffin, then in a surprising turn the same rocking motion softens into a cradle swayed by the wind. The Hours are asked to hush—the Year will soon wake with fresh love in her eyes. January, February, March and April all show up in funeral garb, but the final line lifts toward May’s blossoms. The moods shift quickly from mockery to genuine sorrow and finally to a tender reassurance. It feels like a lullaby for the coldest stretch of the year, one that admits death’s presence yet insists on the certainty of spring.
Dirge for the Year — Summary
Orphan Hours, the Year is dead, Come and sigh, come and weep! Merry Hours, smile instead, For the Year is but asleep. See, it smiles as it is sleeping, Mocking your untimely weeping.
As an earthquake rocks a corse In its coffin in the clay, So White Winter, that rough nurse, Rocks the death-cold Year to-day; Solemn Hours! wail aloud For your mother in her shroud.
As the wild air stirs and sways The tree-swung cradle of a child, So the breath of these rude days Rocks the Year:--be calm and mild, Trembling Hours, she will arise With new love within her eyes.
January gray is here, Like a sexton by her grave; February bears the bier, March with grief doth howl and rave, And April weeps--but, O ye Hours! Follow with May's fairest flowers.