The American humourist and poet Ogden Nash had something to say about the New Year on more than one occasion, and none of it was very complimentary!
His amusing little seasonal piece Good Riddance, But Now What? was featured in the New Year 2024 article.
Good-bye, Old Year, You Oaf or Why Don’t They Pay The Bonus? is another pessimistic New Year poem.
Rather than quote it in full, I have selected some representative lines. This is how it starts:
“Many of the three hundred and sixty-five days of the year are followed by dreadful nights, but one night is far, oh yes, by far the worst,
And that, my friends, is the night of December the thirty-first.”
These are the final lines:
“Every new year is a direct descendant, isn’t it, of a long line of proven criminals?
And you can’t turn it into a philanthropist by welcoming it with cocktails and champagne any more successfully than with prayer books and hyminals.
Every new year is a country as barren as the old one, and it’s no use trying to forage it;
Every new year is incorrigible; then all I can say is for Heaven’s sakes, why go out of your way to incorrage it?”
Another edition of Ogden Nash's poems:
