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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 10, Issue 10 (January 1, 1936)

The Air of the Year

The Air of the Year.

No doubt, dear reader, you have detected “something new in the air of the year,” for:-

While the lingering chime of midnight
Tolls the doom of '35,
There is born a New Year laughing,
Ushered in with song and quaffing,
While the welkin rings with chaffing,
Quirks and quips and merry laughing,
For the year which doth arrive.
Men and maidens making merry
At the cradle of the year,
Donning hats of coloured paper,
Cutting many a curious caper,
Giving vent to vocal vapour,
Joker, jinker, jester, japer,
At the merry midnight fair.
For a New Year comes a'greeting
With the star-dust in his hair,
And there's welcome in the meeting
And there's joy upon the air,
When the men and maids give greeting
To another new-born year.

“But why all the fuss and fol-dediddle over a new year?” saith the cynic, lacing his ale with aloes.

Why? Because new years mean more than steps to the attic of eternity. New years are more than mere measures of Man's mortality. New years are greater than a mess of minutes which count as corpuscles in the blood stream of existence; more than the hours which pulse through the arteries of unattested Time; higher than the days and weeks and months which contribute to the cosmography of chronology.