The Christmas bells from hill to hill Answer each other in the mist.

Four voices of four hamlets round, From far and near, on mead and moor,

Swell out and fail, as if a door Were shut between me and the sound:

Each voice four changes on the wind, That now dilate, and now de

crease,

Peace and goodwill, goodwill and peace,

Peace and goodwill, to all mankind.

This year I slept and woke with pain,
I almost wish'd no more to wake,
And that my hold on life would
break

Before I heard those bells again:
But they my troubled spirit rule,

For they controll'd me whena boy;
They bring me sorrow touch'd
with joy,

The merry merry bells of Yule.

XXIX.

With such compelling cause to grieve

As daily vexes household peace, And chains regret to his decease, How dare we keep our Christmas-eve; Which brings no more a welcome guest

To enrich the threshold of the night

With shower'd largess of delight In dance and song and game and jest? Yet go, and while the holly boughs

Entwine the cold baptismal font, Make one wreath more for Use and Wont,

That guard the portals of the house;

Old sisters of a day gone by,

Gray nurses, loving nothing new ; Why should they miss their yearly due

Before their time? They too will die.

For Wisdom dealt with mortal powers, Where truth in closest words shall

fail,

When truth embodied in a tale Shall enter in at lowly doors.

And so the Word had breath, and wroughtR

With human hands the creed of creeds

In loveliness of perfect deeds, More strong than all poetic thought;

Which he may read that binds the sheaf,

Or builds the house, or digs the grave,

And those wild eyes that watch the wave

In roarings round the coral reef.

XXXVII.

Urania speaks with darken'd brow: "Thou pratest here where thou art least;

This faith has many a purer priest, And many an abler voice than thou. "Go down beside thy native rill,

On thy Parnassus set thy feet, And hear thy laurel whisper sweet About the ledges of the hill."

And my Melpomene replies,

A touch of shame upon her cheek: "I am not worthy ev'n to speak Of thy prevailing mysteries; "For I am but an earthly Muse,

And owning but a little art

To lull with song an aching heart, And render human love his dues;

"But brooding on the dear one dead, And all he said of things divine, (And dear to me as sacred wine To dying lips is all he said),

"I murmur'd, as I came along

Of comfort clasp'd in truth rc. veal'd;

And loiter'd in the master's field, And darken'd sanctities with song."