hristmas cheer:
Ring fleetly, chimes! Swift, swift, my rhymes!
They are made of the mocking mist.

_Noel! Noel!_
Cease, cease, each Christmas bell!
Under the holly bough,
Where the happy children throng and shout,
What shadow seems to flit about?
Is it the mother, then, who died
Ere the greens were sere last Christmas-tide?
Hush, falling chimes! Cease, cease, my rhymes!
The guests are gathered now.

_Edmund Clarence Stedman._

CHRISTMAS IN INDIA.

Dim dawn the tamarisks--the sky is saffron-yellow--
As the women in the village grind the corn,
And the parrots seek the riverside, each calling to his fellow
That the day, the staring eastern day, is born.
Oh, the white dust on the highway! Oh, the stenches in the by-way!
Oh, the clammy fog that hovers over earth!
And at home they're making merry 'neath the white and scarlet berry--
What part have India's exiles in their mirth?

Full day behind the tamarisks--the sky is blue and staring--
As the cattle crawl afield beneath the yoke,
And they bear one o'er the field-path who is past all hope or caring,
To the ghat below the curling wreaths of smoke.
Call on Rama, going slowly, as ye bear a brother lowly--
Call on Rama--he may hear, perhaps, your voice!
With our hymn-books and our psalters we appeal to other altars,
And to-day we bid "good Christian men rejoice!"

High noon above the tamarisks--the sun is hot above us--
As at home the Christmas Day is breaking wan,
They will drink our healths at dinner--those who tell us how they
love us,
And forget us till another year be gone!
Oh, the toil that knows no breaking! Oh! the heimweh, ceaseless,
aching!
Oh, the black, dividing sea and alien plain!
Youth was cheap--wherefore we sold it. Gold was good--we hoped to
hold it,
And to-day we know the fulness of our gain.

Gray dusk behind the tamarisks--the parrots fly together--
As the sun is sinking slowly over home;
And his last ray seems to mock us, shackled in a lifelong tether
That drags us back, howe'er so far we roam.
Hard her service, poor her payment--she in ancient, tattered raiment--
India, she the grim stepmother of our kind.
If a year of life be lent her, if her temple's shrine we enter,
The door is shut--we may not look behind.