And she looketh on the cold wall, and on the
colder sky,

And wonders if the little stars are bright fires up

on high.

She hears the clock strike slowly, up in a church-
tower,

With such a sad and solemn tone, telling the mid-
night hour.

And she remembered her of tales her mother used

to tell,

And of the cradle-songs she sang, when summer's
twilight fell;

Of good men and of angels, and of the Holy

Child,

Who was cradled in a manger when winter was
most wild;

Who was poor, and cold, and hungry, and deso-
late and lone;

And she thought the song had told he was ever
with his own;

And all the poor and hungry and forsaken ones
are his,-

"How good of him to look on me in such a place
as this!"

Colder it grows and colder, but she does not feel

it now,

For the pressure on her heart, and the weight upon her brow;

But she struck one little match on the wall so cold and bare,

That she might look around her, and see if he were there.

There were blood-drops on his forehead, a spearwound in his side,

And cruel nail-prints in his feet, and in his hands spread wide.

And he looked upon her gently, and she felt that

he had known

Pain, hunger, cold, and sorrow,—ay, equal to

her own.

And he pointed to the laden board and to the Christmas tree,

Then

up to the cold sky, and said, "Will Gretchen come with me?"

The poor child felt her pulses fail, she felt her eyeballs swim,

And a ringing sound was in her ears, like her dead mother's hymn:

And she folded both her thin white hands and turned from that bright board,

And from the golden gifts, and said, "With thee, with thee, O Lord!"

The chilly winter morning breaks up in the dull skies

On the city wrapt in vapor, on the spot where Gretchen lies.

In her scant and tattered garments, with her back against the wall,

She sitteth cold and rigid, she answers to no call. They have lifted her up fearfully, they shuddered as they said,

"It was a bitter, bitter night! the child is frozen dead."

The angels sang their greeting for one more redeemed from sin;

Men said, "It was a bitter night; would no one let her in?"

And they shivered as they spoke of her, and sighed. They could not see

How much of happiness there was after that misery.

BEFORE THE GRATE.

From the Cincinnati Commercial Tribune.

A song that's old and always new,
A story none can quite explain,

A woof of dreams that stretches through
The farthest deeps of joy and pain;
A bit of music men have sung,

And still must sing, till Time is late-
Is that old song I find among
The blazing embers in the grate.

A power that is more than art,

Yet homely with the soul of home, That brings to every human heart Tales of old times where'er we roam;

Old faces, forms, old loves, perhaps,

Old hopes and fears that wreathed our fate, Come flooding back, when Memory taps My shoulder at the blazing grate.

Old, and yet sweeter for its age,

Like growing wealth of aged wine; Thrice-told, yet, for the oft-turned page, Dearer to hearts like yours and mine.