The evening shades are falling,--
Hush thee, my dear, dost thou not hear
The voice of the Master calling?

Deep lies the snow upon the earth,
But all the sky is ringing
With joyous song, and all night long
The stars shall dance, with singing.

Oh, hush thee, little Dear-my-Soul,
And close thine eyes in dreaming,
And angels fair shall lead thee where
The singing stars are beaming.

A shepherd calls his little lambs,
And he longeth to caress them;
He bids them rest upon his breast,
That his tender love may bless them.

So, hush thee, little Dear-my-Soul,
Whilst evening shades are falling,
And above the song of the heavenly throng
Thou shalt hear the Master calling.

CARLSBAD.

DEAR Palmer, just a year ago we did the Carlsbad cure,
Which, though it be exceeding slow, is as exceeding sure;
To corpulency you were prone, dyspepsia bothered me,--
You tipped the beam at twenty stone and I at ten stone three!
The cure, they told us, works both ways: it makes the fat man lean;
The thin man, after many days, achieves a portly mien;
And though it's true you still are fat, while I am like a crow,--
All skin and feathers,--what of that? The cure takes time, you know.

The Carlsbad scenery is sublime,--that's what the guide-books say;
We did not think so at that time, nor think _I_ so to-day!
The bluffs that squeeze the panting town permit no pleasing views,
But weigh the mortal spirits down and give a chap the blues.
With nothing to amuse us then or mitigate our spleen,
We rose and went to bed again, with three bad meals between;
And constantly we made our moan,--ah, none so drear as we,
When you were weighing twenty stone and I but ten stone three!

We never scaled the mountain-side, for walking was my bane,
And you were much too big to ride the mules that there obtain;
And so we loitered in the shade with Israel out in force,
Or through the Pupp'sche allee strayed and heard the band discourse.
Sometimes it pleased us to recline upon the Tepl's brink,
Or watch the bilious human line file round to get a drink;
Anon the portier's piping tone embittered you and me,
When you were weighing twenty stone and I but ten stone three!

And oh! those awful things to ea