# The New Year explained — Poetry

> Chapter companion for Poetry by George MacDonald.

## What happens

The poem welcomes the new year, embracing both material poverty and spiritual richness, and reflects on the inevitability of sorrow and death as part of a divine harvest.

## Themes in this chapter

### Suffering and Purification

The poem speaks of making poor the body and leaving behind sorrows, suggesting purification through suffering.

### Longing for Immortality

The imagery of death's harvest-home and joy in going implies a longing for eternal life beyond earthly toil.

## Key lines

> Be welcome, year! with corn and sickle come; Make poor the body, but make rich the heart

Welcome, new year! Bring harvest and labor; let physical poverty enrich the soul.

_The speaker welcomes the new year as a time of spiritual enrichment through material hardship._

> Nor leave behind thy fears and holy shames, Thy sorrows on the horizon hanging low⁠— Gray gathered fuel for the sunset-flames When joyous in death’s harvest-home we go.

Do not forget your fears and sacred regrets, your sorrows that linger like gray clouds at dusk, for they become fuel for the joyful final harvest of death.

_Sorrows and fears are reframed as necessary fuel for the glorious transition into death's eternal harvest._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/the-new-year
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_8_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters