in the Bobbin to feast,
Or to frequently call and see
The Beauty and the Beast.

For she and you and I
And the Rusty Dusty Miller
Will eat of a Christmas-Pie
With Jack the Giant-Killer.

Then come, let us make our homes
In the most frequented nooks
Of the land of elves and gnomes,
In the beautiful Land of Books!

_Charles Henry Lueders._

WAITING.

As little children in a darkened hall
At Christmas-tide await the opening door,
Eager to tread the fairy-haunted floor
Around the tree with goodly gifts for all,
Oft in the darkness to each other call,--
Trying to guess their happiness before--
Or knowing elders eagerly implore
To tell what fortune unto them may fall,--

So wait we in time's dim and narrow room,
And, with strange fancies or another's thought,
Try to divine before the curtain rise
The wondrous scene; forgetting that the gloom
Must shortly flee from what the ages sought,--
The Father's long-planned gift of Paradise.

_C. H. Crandall._

AUNT MARY.

A CORNISH CHRISTMAS CHANT.

Now of all the trees by the king's highway,
Which do you love the best?
O! the one that is green upon Christmas-day,
The bush with the bleeding breast.
Now the holly with her drops of blood for me:
For that is our dear Aunt Mary's tree.

Its leaves are sweet with our Saviour's name,
'Tis a plant that loves the poor:
Summer and winter it shines the same
Beside the cottage door.
O! the holly with her drops of blood for me:
For that is our kind Aunt Mary's tree.

'Tis a bush that the birds will never leave:
They sing in it all day long;
But sweetest of all upon Christmas-eve
Is to hear the robin's song.
'Tis the merriest sound upon earth and sea:
For it comes from our own Aunt Mary's tree.

So, of all that grow by the king's highway,
I love that tree the best;
'Tis a bower for the birds upon Christmas-day,
The bush of the bleeding breast.
O! the holly with her drops of blood for me:
For that is our sweet Aunt Mary's tree.

_Robert Stephen Hawker._

THE GLAD NEW DAY.

And why should not that land rejoice,
And darkness flee away,
When on its dim, benighted hills
Has dawned the glad new day?
For now behold the shepherds go,
The wondrous babe to see;
Ah, then methinks that al