74

THE POET'S CHRISTMAS.

These, with old hopes once nursed in vain,
Old joys, old tears, old feelings fled,
And that long, long remembered train,
The army of the dead!

My Christmas guests. With these I sit

Through every shout, through every chime,
A weary bird, condemned to flit

Round darkening shores of Time.
But constant cares and sorrows grow
Familiar as a face we love;

And there are luxuries of woe
Jove's banquet could not move.

And if, at Fancy's wild command,

Some form should mould itself from shade,

Or through the gloom I felt a hand
Upon my shoulder laid,

Scarce would I start so long I've known
That loneliness of life which gives
The soul a phantom world its own,
Wherein it silent lives.

But let the world have joy without,
The poet shall have joy within.
Then wreathe old Christmas' face about,
Down to his glowing chin;

No pleasure spare, no pastime shun,

Each roof with social clouds be curled : 'Tis well; for once beneath the sun

There rolls a happy world!

JAMES MACFARLANE.

76

THE FISHERMEN.

Each thought of the woman who loved him the best,

And the children stood watching them out of the town. For men must work, and women must weep; ̧

And there's little to earn, and many to keep,

Though the harbor bar be moaning.

Three wives sat up in the light-house tower,

And trimmed the lamps as the sun went down ;

And they looked at the squall, and they looked at the shower, And the rack it came rolling up, ragged and brown.

But men must work, and women must weep,

Though storms be sudden, and waters deep,
And the harbor bar be moaning.

Three corpses lay out on the shining sands,

In the morning gleam as the tide went down;

And the women are watching, and wringing their hands,
For those who will never come back to the town.
For men must work, and women must weep ;
And the sooner it's over, the sooner to sleep ;

And good-bye to the bar and its moaning!

CHARLES KINGSLEY.

WE PARTED IN SILENCE.

WE parted in silence, we parted by night,
On the banks of that lonely river;
Where the fragrant limes their boughs unite,
We met and we parted forever!
The night-bird sang, and the stars above
Told many a touching story

Of friends long passed to the kingdom of love,
Where the soul wears its mantle of glory.

We parted in silence; our cheeks were wet
With the tears that were past controlling;

And those vows at the time were consoling; But those lips that echoed the sounds of mine Are as cold as that lonely river;

And that eye, the beautiful spirit's shrine,
Has shrouded its fires forever.

And now on the midnight sky I look,
And my heart grows full of weeping;

Each star is to me a sealed book,
Some tale of that loved one keeping.

tista came up alone

And vir toer the sand.

The Greekeen

lund round tround tree sand