Good-by, kind year, we walk no more together,
But here in quiet happiness we part;

And from thy wreath of faded fern and heather
I take some sprays, and wear them on my heart.
- Sarah Doudney.

JANUARY.

HERE was never a leaf on bush or tree,

The bare boughs rattled shudderingly;

The river was dumb and could not speak,
For the weaver Winter its shroud had spun ;
A single crow on the tree-top bleak

From his shining feathers shed off the cold sun;
Again it was morning, but shrunk and cold,

As if her veins were sapless and old,

And she rose up decrepitly

For a last dim look at earth and sea.

-James Russell Lowell.

JANUS AND JANUARY.

ANUS am I; oldest of potentates!

JANUS

Forward I look and backward, and below

I count

as god of avenues and gates

The years that through my portals come and go. I block the roads and drift the fields with snow, I chase the wild-fowl from the frozen fen;

My frosts congeal the rivers in their flow,

My fires light up the hearths and hearts of men. - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

THRESHOLD OF THE NEW YEAR.

WE

WE are standing on the threshold, we are in the opened door,

We are treading on a border land we have never trod before;

Another year is opening, and another year is gone,

We have passed the darkness of the night, we are in the early morn;

We have left the fields behind us o'er which we scattered

seed;

We pass
into the future which some of us can read.
The corn among the weeds, the stones, the surface mold,

May yield a partial harvest; we hope for sixty-fold.
Then hasten to fresh labor, to thrash and reap and sow,
Then bid the New Year welcome, and let the old year

go;

Then gather all your vigor, press forward in the fight,

And let this be your motto, "For God and for the Right."

- Selected.

R

THE NEW YEAR.

ING out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light :

The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,

Ring, happy bells, across the snow;
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
King in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,

And ancient forms of party strife; King in the nobler modes of life, With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,

The faithless coldness of the times;

Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,

But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,

Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;

King out the narrowing lust of gold; King out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,

The larger heart, the kindlier hand; Ring out the darkness of the land, Ring in the Christ that is to be.

-Alfred Tennyson.

WINTER.

UT winter has yet brighter scenes — he boasts

BUT

Splendors beyond what gorgeous summer knows, Or autumn with its many fruits, and woods

All flushed with many hues. Come when the rains. Have glazed the snow and clothed the trees with ice, While the slant sun of February pours

Into the bowers a flood of light.

Approach!

The incrusted surface shall upbear thy steps,
And the broad arching portals of the grove
Welcome thy entering. Look! the massy trunks
Are cased in the pure crystal; each light spray,
Nodding and tinkling in the breath of heaven,
Is studded with its trembling water drops,
That glimmer with an amethystine light.
But round the parent-stem the long low boughs
Bend in a glittering ring, and arbors hide

The glassy floor.

All, all is light;

Light without shade.

But all shall pass away

With the next sun. From numberless vast trunks
Loosened, the crashing ice shall make a sound
Like the far roar of rivers, and the eve

Shall close o'er the brown woods as it was wont.

-William Cullen Bryant.

SKATING.

A was set, and, visible, for many a mile,

ND in the frosty season, when the sun

The cottage-windows through the twilight blazed, I heeded not the summons. Happy time

It was indeed for all of us: for me

It was a time of rapture!

Clear and loud

The village clock 1 lied six. I wheeled about,
Proud and exulting, like an untired horse

That cares not for its home.

All shod with steel,

We hissed along the polished ice, in games
Confederate, imitative of the chase

And woodland pleasures, the resounding horn,
The pack loud bellowing, and the hunted hare.
So through the darkness and the cold we flew,
And not a voice was idle.

With the din

Meanwhile the precipices rang aloud.
The leafless trees and every icy crag
Tinkled like iron; while the distant hills
Into the tumult sent an alien sound

Of melancholy, not unnoticed; while the stars
Eastward were sparkling clear, and in the west
The orange sky of evening died away.

Not seldom from the uproar I retired Into a silent bay; or sportively

Glanced sideways, leaving the tumultuous throng,
To cut across the reflex of a star,

Image, that, flying still before me, gleamed
Upon the glassy plain. And oftentimes,
When we had given our bodies to the wind,

And all the shadowy banks on either side

Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still
The rapid line of motion, then at once
Have I, reclining back upon my heels,

Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs