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CHRISTMAS
Nor pantomimes, whose dreariness
Might turn macassar gray;
Nor boisterous children, home in heaps,
And ravenous of play;
Nor yet—in fact, the host of ills
Which Christmases array.
God rest you, merry gentlemen,
May none of these dismay!
A CHRISTMAS LETTER FROM AUSTRALIA
DOUGLAS SLADEN
’Tis Christmas, and the North wind blows; ’twas two years yesterday
Since from the Lusitania’s bows I looked o’er Table Bay,
A tripper round the narrow world, a pilgrim of the main,
Expecting when her sails unfurled to start for home again.
’Tis Christmas, and the North wind blows; today our hearts are one,
Though you are ’mid the English snows and I in Austral sun;
You, when you hear the Northern blast, pile high a mightier fire,
