Christmas Decorations. FOUNDED ON FACT. LOW merry Christmas-tide has come, And girls, with faces gay, To their beloved minister An early visit pay. "To deck the church with holly-leaves, We ask permission, sir, With wreaths of ivy intertwined, Or texts, if you prefer." "Pray go, and do whate'er you like; I only beg to say, Please keep all texts from off the walls, And let the whitewash stay!" 120 CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS. On Sunday, what a wondrous change! And though you look around for it, The reading-desk no longer seems But neither wreaths nor Baal's groves, The people come: some turn their eyes And wonder, "Who has put them there?" Some smile, and say, "How Christmas-like!" While others turn away; They never thought to see the like, Such crosses, such array. CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS. One whispers to her dearest friend, Another thinks (she does not say) Ye ghosts, and goblins, tell me, pray, No! that remains a mystery: Now friends and foes, "Good-bye;" Take my advice, where nothing is, O'er nothing raise a cry. WORCESTER COLLEGE, OXFORD. 121 ION. VOL. VI. K Aranslation from a horus in the Agamemnon. (v. 1000.) HO was it named her all so true? Of Helen's future fate? Who prescient saw her through her life Her name well matched her state. Of man and ships destroyer she, Forth from the costly veils, The veils her bridal chamber wore, She went and soft from Helen's shore Great Zephyr wafts her sails. TRANSLATION FROM AGAMEMNON. But many a warrior-huntsman bore And followed, where her trackless oar It was the wrath of gods on high, At Iliam's door that laid For injured hospitality That marriage marred, not made.' * And while the bridal chant they sing, And sad full well she might complain, B. N. C., OXFORD. 123 A. J. |