Of conquest, and impetuously they boast
Of how this shot was played,--with what a bend
Peculiar--the perfection of all art--
That stone came rolling grandly to the Tee
With victory crowned, and flinging wide the rest
In lordly crash! Within the village inn
They by the roaring chimney sit, and quaff
The beaded Usqueba with sugar dashed.
O, when the precious liquid fires the brain
To joy, and every heart beats fast with mirth
And ancient fellowship, what nervy grasps
Of horny hands o'er tables of rough oak!
What singing of Lang Syne till tear-drops shine,
And friendships brighten as the evening wanes!

_David Gray._

SIR GALAHAD.

When on my goodly charger borne
Thro' dreaming towns I go,
The cock crows ere the Christmas morn,
The streets are dumb with snow.
The tempest crackles on the leads
And, ringing, springs from brand and mail;
But o'er the dark a glory spreads,
And gilds the driving hail.

_Lord Tennyson._

[Illustration: "Too Happy, Happy Tree"]

A THOUGHT FOR THE TIME.

In a drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy tree,
Thy branches ne'er remember
Their green felicity:
The north cannot undo them
With a sleety whistle through them;
Nor frozen thawings glue them
From budding at the prime.

In a drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy brook,
Thy bubblings ne'er remember
Apollo's summer look;
But with a sweet forgetting,
They stay their crystal fretting,
Never, never petting
About the frozen time.

Ah! would't were so with many
A gentle girl and boy!
But were there ever any
Writhed not at passed joy?
To know the change and feel it,
When there is none to heal it,
Nor numbed sense to steal it,
Was never said in rhyme.

_John Keats._

BALLADE OF THE WINTER FIRESIDE.

An ingle-blaze and a steaming jug;
A lamp and a lazy book;
And, deep in a doubled, downy rug
Your feet to the warmest nook.
And wherever the eye may crook,
A print or a tumbled tome--
For the kettle sings on the blackened hook,
And hey! for the sweets of home!

What though the traveller toil and tug
Where sleety drifts be shook?
What though i' the churchyard graves be dug;
And sweethearts be forsook?
A hearth, and a careful cook,
And cares may go or come!
For the kettle sings on th