d Christmas Day.

Their axes rang through the evergreen trees
Like the bells on the Thames and Tay;
And they cheerily sang by the windy seas,
And they thought of Malabarre Bay.
On the lonely heights of Burial Hill
The old Precisioners sleep;
But did ever men with a nobler will
A holier Christmas keep,
When the sky was cold and gray,--
And there were no ancient bells to ring,
No priests to chant, no choirs to sing,
No chapel of baron, or lord, or king,
That gray, cold Christmas Day?

THE CHIMES.

BY CHARLES DICKENS.

FIRST QUARTER.

There are not many people--and as it is desirable that a story-teller
and a story-reader should establish a mutual understanding as soon as
possible, I beg it to be noticed that I confine this observation neither
to young people nor to little people, but extend it to all conditions of
people: little and big, young and old: yet growing up, or already
growing down again--there are not, I say, many people who would care to
sleep in a church. I don't mean at sermon time in warm weather (when the
thing has actually been done, once or twice), but in the night, and
alone. A great multitude of persons will be violently astonished, I
know, by this position, in the broad bold Day. But it applies to Night.
It must be argued by night. And I will undertake to maintain it
successfully on any gusty winter's night appointed for the purpose, with
any one opponent chosen from the rest, who will meet me singly in an old
churchyard, before an old church door; and will previously empower me to
lock him in, if needful to his satisfaction, until morning.

For the night-wind has a dismal trick of wandering round and round a
building of that sort, and moaning as it goes; and of trying with its
unseen hand, the windows and the doors; and seeking out some crevices by
which to enter. And when it has got in; as one not finding what it
seeks, whatever that may be, it wails and howls to issue forth again;
and not content with stalking through the aisles, and gliding round and
round the pillars, and tempting the deep organ, soars up to the roof,
and strives to rend the rafters; then flings itself despairingly upon
the stones below, and passes, muttering, into the vaults. Ugh! Heaven
preserve us, sitting snugly round the fire! It has an awful voice, that
wind at midnight, singing in a church!

B