CHRISTMAS is here;
Winds whistle shrill,

Icy and chill,

Little care we;
Little we fear
Weather without,
Shelter'd about
The Mahogany Tree.

Once on the boughs
Birds of rare plume
Sang, in its bloom;
Night birds are we;
Here we carouse,
Singing, like them,
Perch'd round the stem
Of the jolly old tree.

Here let us sport,
Boys, as we sit
Laughter and wit
Flashing so free.

And pledge a hand to all young friends,
As fits the merry Christmas time;
On life's wide scene you, too, have parts,
That fate ere long shall bid you play;
Good-night! - with honest gentle hearts
A kindly greeting go alway!

Good-night! I'd say the griefs, the joys,
Just hinted in this mimic page,
The triumphs and defeats of boys,

Are but repeated in our age;
I'd say your woes were not less keen,
Your hopes more vain, than those of

men,

Your pangs or pleasures of fifteen
At forty-five played o'er again.

I'd say we suffer and we strive
Not less nor more as men than boys,
With grizzled beards at forty-five,
As erst at twelve in corduroys,
And if, in time of sacred youth,
We learn'd at home to love and pray,
Pray heaven that early love and truth
May never wholly pass away.

And in the world, as in the school,

I'd say how fate may change and shift, The prize be sometimes with the fool, The race not always to the swift; The strong may yield, the good may fall, The great man be a vulgar clown, The knave be lifted over all,

The kind cast pitilessly down.

Who knows the inscrutable design?
Blessed be He who took and gave!
Why should your mother, Charles, not
mine,

Be weeping at her darling's grave?
We bow to heaven that will'd it so,
That darkly rules the fate of all,
That sends the respite or the blow,
That's free to give or to recall.

THE IVY GREEN

This crowns his feast with wine and wit-
Who brought him to that mirth and state?
His betters, see, below him sit,

Or hunger hopeless at the gate.
Who bade the mud from Dives' wheel
To spurn the rags of Lazarus ?
Come, brother, in that dust we 'll kneel,
Confessing heaven that rul'd it thus.

So each shall mourn, in life's advance,
Dear hopes, dear friends, untimely kill'd,
Shall grieve for many a forfeit chance,
And longing passion unfulfill'd.
Amen!-whatever fate be sent,

Pray God the heart may kindly glow,
Although the head with cares be bent,
And whiten'd with the winter snow.

Come wealth or want, come good or ill,
Let young and old accept their part,
And bow before the awful will,

And bear it with an honest heart.
Who misses or who wins the prize

Go, lose or conquer as you can; But if you fail, or if you rise,

Be each, pray God, a gentleman.

A gentleman, or old or young!

(Bear kindly with my humble lays ;) The sacred chorus first was sung

Upon the first of Christmas days; The shepherds heard it overhead The joyful angels rais'd it then : Glory to heaven on high, it said,

And peace on earth to gentle men!

My song, save this, is little worth;
I lay the weary pen aside,

And wish you health, and love, and mirth,
As fits the solemn Christmas-tide.
As fits the holy Christmas birth,

Be this, good friends, our carol still :
Be
peace on earth, be peace on earth,
To men of gentle will.

Uн, a dainty plant is the Ivy green,
That creepeth o'er ruins old!

Of right choice food are his meals I ween,
In his cell so lone and cold.

The wall must be crumbled, the stone decayed,

To pleasure his dainty whim;

And the mouldering dust that years have made

Is a merry meal for him.

Creeping where no life is seen,
A rare old plant is the Ivy green.

A FLOATING, a floating
Across the sleeping sea,
All night I heard a singing bird
Upon the topmast tree.

"Oh, came you from the isles of Greece Or from the banks of Seine ;

Or off some tree in forests free,
Which fringe the western main ?"

"I came not off the old world
Nor yet from off the new-
But I am one of the birds of God
Which sing the whole night through."

"Oh, sing and wake the dawning -
Oh, whistle for the wind;
The night is long, the current strong,
My boat it lags behind.”

"The current sweeps the old world,
The current sweeps the new ;

The wind will blow, the dawn will glow, Ere thou hast sail'd them through.

THE DEAD CHURCH

WILD, wild wind, wilt thou never cease thy sighing?

Dark, dark night, wilt thou never wear away?

Cold, cold church, in thy death sleep lying, Thy Lent is past, thy Passion here, but not thine Easterday.

dark and sighing;

Aw'D by her own rash words she was still and her eyes to the seaward Look'd for an answer of wrath: far off, in the heart of the darkness,

Bright white mists rose slowly; beneath them the wandering ocean Glimmer'd and glow'd to the deepest

abyss; and the knees of the maiden Trembled and sank in her fear, as afar, like a dawn in the midnight,

Rose from their seaweed chamber the choir of the mystical sea-maids. Onward toward her they came, and her heart beat loud at their coming, Watching the bliss of the gods, as waken'd the cliffs with their laughter. Onward they came in their joy, and before them the roll of the surges Sank, as the breeze sank dead, into smooth green foam-fleck'd marble, Aw'd; and the crags of the cliff, and the

pines of the mountain were silent. Onward they came in their joy, and

around them the lamps of the seanymphs,

Myriad fiery globes, swam panting and

heaving; and rainbows, Crimson and azure and emerald, were

broken in star-showers, lighting Far through the wine-dark depths of the crystal, the gardens of Nereus, Coral and sea-fan and tangle, the blooms and the palms of the ocean. Onward they came in their joy, more white than the foam which they scatter'd, Laughing and singing, and tossing and twining, while eager, the Tritons Blinded with kisses their eyes, unreprov'd, and above them in worship Hover'd the terns, and the seagulls swept past them on silvery pinions

the wantoning dolphins

Sigh'd as they plunged, full of love; and the great sea-horses which bore them Curv'd up their crests in their pride to the delicate arms of the maiden,

Pawing the spray into gems, till the fiery rainfall, unharming,

Sparkled and gleam'd on the limbs of the nymphs, and the coils of the mermen. Onward they went in their joy, bath'd round with the fiery coolness, Needing nor sun nor moon, self-lighted, immortal: but others,

Pitiful, floated in silence apart; in their bosoms the sea-boys,

Slain by the wrath of the seas, swept down by the anger of Nereus ;

Hapless, whom never again on strand or on quay shall their mothers

Welcome with garlands and vows to the temple, but wearily pining

Gaze over island and bay for the sails of the sunken; they heedless Sleep in soft bosoms forever, and dream of the surge and the sea-maids. Onward they pass'd in their joy; on their brows neither sorrow nor anger; Self-sufficing, as gods, never heeding the woe of the maiden.

THE LAST BUCCANEER

Он, England is a pleasant place for them that 's rich and high;

But England is a cruel place for such poor folks as I;

And such a port for mariners I ne'er shall see again,

As the pleasant Isle of Avès, beside the Spanish main.

There were forty craft in Avès that were both swift and stout,

All furnish'd well with small arms and cannons round about;

And a thousand men in Avès made laws so fair and free

To choose their valiant captains and obey them loyally.

Thence we sail'd against the Spaniard with
his hoards of plate and gold,
Which he wrung by cruel tortures from the
Indian folk of old;