As plump and pudgy as a snipe;
Well worth her weight in gold;
Of honest, clean, conspicuous type,
And just the size to hold!

With such a volume for my wife,
How should I keep and con!
How like a dream should run my life
Unto its colophon!

Her frontispiece should be more fair

Than any colored plate;

Blooming with health, she would not care

To extra-illustrate.

And in her pages there should be
A wealth of prose and verse,

With now and then a jeu d'esprit, –

But nothing ever worse!

Prose for me when I wished for prose,

Verse when to verse inclined, Forever bringing sweet repose

To body, heart, and mind.

Oh, I should bind this priceless prize
In bindings full and fine,

And keep her where no human eyes

Should see her charms, but mine!

With such a fair unique as this
What happiness abounds!

Who

who could paint my rapturous bliss,

My joy unknown to Lowndes !

CHRISTMAS HYMN.

SING, Christmas bells!

Say to the earth this is the morn
Whereon our Saviour-King is born;

Sing to all men, - the bond, the free,

The rich, the poor, the high, the low,
The little child that sports in glee,

The aged folk that tottering go,

Proclaim the morn

That Christ is born,

That saveth them and saveth me!

Sing, angel host!

Sing of the star that God has placed

Above the manger in the east ;

Sing of the glories of the night,

The virgin's sweet humility,

The Babe with kingly robes bedight,

Sing to all men where'er they be
This Christmas morn;

For Christ is born,

That saveth them and saveth me!

Sing, sons of earth!

O ransomed seed of Adam, sing!
God liveth, and we have a king!

The curse is gone, the bond are free,
By Bethlehem's star that brightly beamed,
By all the heavenly signs that be,
We know that Israel is redeemed;
That on this morn

The Christ is born

That saveth you and saveth me!

Sing, O my heart!

Sing thou in rapture this dear morn
Whereon the blessed Prince is born!
And as thy songs shall be of love,
So let my deeds be charity,

By the dear Lord that reigns above,
By Him that died upon the tree,
By this fair morn

Whereon is born

The Christ that saveth all and me!

JAPANESE LULLABY.

SLEEP, little pigeon, and fold your wings, -
Little blue pigeon with velvet eyes;

Sleep to the singing of mother-bird swinging-
Swinging the nest where her little one lies.

Away out yonder I see a star,

Silvery star with a tinkling song;

To the soft dew falling I hear it calling –
Calling and tinkling the night along.

In through the window a moonbeam comes,
Little gold moonbeam with misty wings;
All silently creeping, it asks, "Is he sleeping-
Sleeping and dreaming while mother sings?"

Up from the sea there floats the sob

Of the waves that are breaking upon the shore, As though they were groaning in anguish, and moaning

Bemoaning the ship that shall come no more.