215

The Virgin's Cradle-Hymn 216

The Sovereign 217

By the Cradle-Side 219

The Virgin Mary to the Child Jesus 221

A Bedside Ditty 230

Given Back on Christmas Morn 231

A Lulling Song 237

Good-Night 239

FOOTNOTES:

[A] By the courtesy of Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

[B] By the courtesy of The Century Company.

[C] By the courtesy of Messrs. Funk & Wagnalls.

_Legends in Song._

"Tell sweet old tales,
Sing songs as we sit bending o'er the hearth,
Till the lamp flickers and the memory fails."

_Frederick Tennyson._

THE HALLOWED TIME.

Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long;
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallowed and so gracious is the time.

_Shakespeare._

ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY.

This is the month, and this the happy morn,
Wherein the Son of Heaven's eternal King,
Of wedded maid and virgin mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring;
For so the holy sages once did sing,
That he our deadly forfeit should release,
And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.

That glorious form, that light insufferable,
And that far-beaming blaze of majesty,
Wherewith he wont at heaven's high council-table
To sit the midst of Trinal Unity,
He laid aside; and, here with us to be,
Forsook the courts of everlasting day,
And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.

Say, heavenly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein
Afford a present to the Infant-God?
Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain
To welcome him to this his new abode,
Now while the heaven, by the sun's team untrod,
Hath took no print of the approaching light,
And all the spangled host kept watch in squadron bright?

See, how from far, upon the eastern road,
The star-led wizards haste with odors sweet;
O run, prevent them with th