CHRISTMAS-TIME.

HEAP on more wood!

the wind is chill;

But let it whistle as it will,
We'll keep our Christmas merry still.
Each age has deemed the new-born year
The fittest time for festal cheer:
Even heathen yet, the savage Dane
At Iol more deep the mead did drain;
High on the beach his galleys drew,
And feasted all his pirate crew;
Then in his low and pine-built hall,
Where shields and axes decked the
wall,

They gorged upon the half-dressed steer;
Caroused in seas of sable beer;
While round, in brutal jest, were thrown
The half-gnawed rib and marrow-bone,
Or listened all, in grim delight,
While scalds yelled out the joys of fight.
Then forth in frenzy would they hie,
While wildly loose their red locks fly;
And, dancing round the blazing pile,
They make such barbarous mirth the
while,

As best might to the mind recall
The boisterous joys of Odin's hall.

And well our Christian sires of old
Loved when the year its course had rolled,
And brought blithe Christmas back again,
With all his hospitable train.
Domestic and religious rite
Gave honor to the holy night:

On Christmas eve the bells were rung;
On Christmas eve the mass was sung;
That only night, in all the year,
Saw the stoled priest the chalice rear.
The damsel donned her kirtle sheen;
The hall was dressed with holly green;
Forth to the wood did merry-men go,
To gather in the mistletoe.

Then opened wide the baron's hall
To vassal, tenant, serf, and all;
Power laid his rod of rule aside,
And Ceremony doffed his pride.
The heir, with roses in his shoes,
That night might village partner choose;
The lord, underogating, share
The vulgar game of "post and pair."
All hailed, with uncontrolled delight
And general voice, the happy night
That to the cottage, as the crown,
Brought tidings of salvation down.

The fire, with well-dried logs supplied, Went roaring up the chimney wide;

The huge hall-table's oaken face,
Scrubbed till it shone the day to grace,
Bore then upon its massive board
No mark to part the squire and lord.
Then was brought in the lusty brawn,
By old blue-coated serving-man;
Then the grim boar's head frowned on
high,

Crested with bays and rosemary.
Well can the green-garbed ranger tell
How, when, and where the monster fell;
What dogs before his death he tore,
And all the baiting of the boar.
The wassail round, in good brown bowls,
Garnished with ribbons, blithely trowls.
There the huge sirloin reeked; hard by
Plum-porridge stood, and Christmas pie;
Nor failed old Scotland to produce,
At such high-tide, her savory goose.
Then came the merry maskers in,
And carols roared with blithesome din;
If unmelodious was the song,
It was a hearty note, and strong.
Who lists may in their mumming see
Traces of ancient mystery;
White skirts supplied the masquerade,
And smutted cheeks the visors made:
But, O, what maskers richly dight
Can boast of bosoms half so light!
England was merry England, when
Old Christmas brought his sports again.
"T was Christmas broached the mightiest

ale;

'T was Christmas told the merriest tale; A Christmas gambol oft could cheer The poor man's heart through half the

year.

And she was there, my hope, my joy, My own dear Genevieve!

She leaned against the arméd man, The statue of the arméd knight; She stood and listened to my lay, Amid the lingering light.

Few sorrows hath she of her own,
My hope! my joy! my Genevieve!
She loves me best, whene'er I sing

The songs that make her grieve.

I played a soft and doleful air,
I sang an old and moving story,
An old rude song, that suited well
That ruin wild and hoary.

She listened with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes and modest grace;
For well she knew, I could not choose
But gaze upon her face.

I told her of the Knight that wore
Upon his shield a burning brand;
And that for ten long years he wooed
The Lady of the Land.

I told her how he pined: and ah!
The deep, the low, the pleading tone
With which I sang another's love
Interpreted my own.

She listened with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes, and modest grace;
And she forgave me, that I gazed
Too fondly on her face.

But when I told the cruel scorn
That crazed that bold and lovely Knight,

[1772-1834.]

GENEVIEVE.

ALL thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
All are but ministers of Love,

And feed his sacred flame.

Oft in my waking dreams do I
Live o'er again that happy hour,
When midway on the mount I lay

Beside the ruined tower.

The moonshine stealing o'er the scene Had blended with the lights of eve;

Nor rested day nor night;

That sometimes from the savage den, And sometimes from the darksome shade, And sometimes starting up at once

In green and sunny glade,

There came and looked him in the face
An angel beautiful and bright;
And that he knew it was a Fiend,

This miserable Knight!

And that unknowing what he did,
He leaped amid a murderous band,
And saved from outrage worse than death,
The Lady of the Land;

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The scorn that crazed his brain;

And that she nursed him in a cave,
And how his madness went away,
When on the yellow forest-leaves

A dying man he lay;

- His dying words—but when I reached That tenderest strain of all the ditty, My faltering voice and pausing harp Disturbed her soul with pity!

All impulses of soul and sense
Had thrilled my guileless Genevieve;
The music and the doleful tale,

The rich and balmy eve;

And hopes, and fears that kindle hope,
An undistinguishable throng,
And gentle wishes long subdued,

Subdued and cherished long.

She wept with pity and delight,
She blushed with love, and virgin shame;
And like the murmur of a dream,

I heard her breathe my name.

Her bosom heaved, — she stepped aside,
As conscious of my look she stept,
Then suddenly, with timorous eye,

She fled to me and wept.

She half enclosed me with her arms,
She pressed me with a meek embrace;
And, bending back her head, looked up,
And gazed upon my face.

'T was partly love, and partly fear,
And partly 't was a bashful art
That I might rather feel than see

The swelling of her heart.

I calmed her fears, and she was calm, And told her love with virgin pride; And so I won my Genevieve,

My bright and beauteous Bride.

HYMN BEFORE SUNRISE, IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI.

HAST thou a charm to stay the morning star

In his steep course? So long he seems to pause

Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines How silently! Around thee and above Deep is the air, and dark, substantial, black,

An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it As with a wedge! But when I look again, It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine,

Thy habitation from eternity! O dread and silent Mount! I gazed upon thee,

Till thou, still present to the bodily sense, Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer

I worshipped the Invisible alone.

Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody, So sweet we know not we are listening

vale!

O, struggling with the darkness all the night,

And visited all night by troops of stars, Or when they climb the sky or when they sink,

Companion of the morning star at dawn, Thyself Earth's rosy star, and of the dawn Co-herald,-wake, O, wake, and utter praise!

Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth? Who filled thy countenance with rosy light?

Who made thee parent of perpetual streams?

And you, ye five wild torrents, fiercely glad!

Who called you forth from night and utter death,

rocks,

Forever shattered and the same forever? Who gave you your invulnerable life, Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy,

Unceasing thunder and eternal foam? And who commanded (and the silence came),

Here let the billows stiffen and have rest? Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow

Adown enormous ravines slope amain, Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,

And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge!

Motionless torrents! silent cataracts! Who made you glorious as the gates of Heaven

Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade

thou

That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low
In adoration, upward from thy base
Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused
with tears,

Solemnly seemest like a vapory cloud
To rise before me - Rise, O, ever rise,
Rise like a cloud of incense from the
Earth!

Thou kingly Spirit throned among the hills,

Thou dread ambassador from Earth to Heaven,

Great hierarch! tell thou the silent sky, And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun, Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.

CHRISTABEL.

PART I.

"T Is the middle of night by the castle clock,

And the owls have awakened the crowing cock;

Tu-whit! tu-whoo!

And hark, again! the crowing cock,
How drowsily it crew.

Sir Leoline, the Baron rich,
Hath a toothless mastiff bitch;
From her kennel beneath the rock
She maketh answer to the clock,
Four for the quarters, and twelve for the
hour;

Ever and aye, by shine and shower,
Sixteen short howls, not over-loud;
Some say, she sees my lady's shroud.

Is the night chilly and dark?
The night is chilly, but not dark.
The thin gray cloud is spread on high,
It covers but not hides the sky.
The moon is behind, and at the full;
And yet she looks both small and dull.
The night is chill, the cloud is gray;
"T is a month before the month of May,
And the Spring comes slowly up this way.

The lovely lady, Christabel,
Whom her father loves so well,
What makes her in the wood so late,
A furlong from the castle gate?
She had dreams all yesternight
Of her own betrothed knight;