Poems for the New Year

Find poems to read and share for New Year's, including poems about New Year's Eve, the old year, beginnings, January, and more.

Classic Poems for the New Year

“A Song for New Year's Eve” by William Cullen Bryant
Stay yet, my friends, a moment stay...

“Auld Lang Syne” by Robert Burns
Should auld acquaintance be forgot...

“The Old Year” by John Clare
The Old Year's gone away...

“Written in the Beginning of the Year 1746” by William Collins
How sleep the brave, who sink to rest...

“Song for the New Year” by Eliza Cook
Old Time has turned another page...

“In Tenebris” by Ford Madox Ford
All within is warm...

“At the Entering of the New Year” by Thomas Hardy
Our songs went up and out the chimney...

“New Year's Morning” by Helen Hunt Jackson
Only a night from old to new!

“Archaic Torso of Apollo” by Rainer Maria Rilke
We cannot know his legendary head...

“The Passing of the Year” by Robert W. Service
My glass is filled, my pipe is lit...

“In Memoriam [Ring out, wild bells]” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky...

“The Year” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
What can be said in New Year rhymes...

“New Year's Morning” by Carl Adamshick
A low, quiet music is playing...

“A New Law” by Greg Delanty
Let there be a ban on every holiday...

“Elegy for a Year” by Joseph Fasano
Before I watched you die, I watched the dying...

“I Want to Save This Whale” by Lisa Olstein
The one right in front of me...

“Resolution” by Lia Purpura
There's the thing I shouldn't do...

“Burning the Old Year” by Naomi Shihab Nye
Letters swallow themselves in seconds...

“Te Deum” by Charles Reznikoff
Not because of victories...

“A House Called Tomorrow” by Alberto Ríos
You are not fifteen, or twelve, or seventeen...

“Elegy in Joy” by Muriel Rukeyser
We tell beginnings...

“Duet” by Lisa Russ Spaar
Two sisters side by side...

“Good Bones” by Maggie Smith
Life is short, though I keep this from my children...

“January” by William Carlos Williams
Again I reply to the triple winds...