While the hushed winds sang the story,
The sweetest that mortals know.

Above in the King's bright dwelling
The seraphs were singing o'er
What the shepherds heard when telling
The hours as they watched of yore;
But though in heaven was gladness,
The beautiful earth was still,
For children of men in sadness
Knew not of peace and good-will.

They knew not it was the evening

That Bethlehem's star came down,

And the greatest gift was given

When the Lord left home and crown; Each was silent with his sorrow,

Nor cared for another's woe;

So, forgetful of the morrow,

They saw not the bright stars glow.

Then the Christ-child spake, and silent
Each musical angel stood:
"We alone are keeping Christmas,
That was made for mortals' good;
Away, away, where my children
On earth are silent and lone,
And tell them the joyful tidings,
While I will visit my own!"

So the angels glad, obeying,

Flew earthward, and sang the song That a world in darkness straying Had not heard in ages long; And those who were vigils keeping Heard melodious anthems clear, While those who were sweetly sleeping, In dreams, felt heaven was near. Then the Christ-child, meek and holy, With sweet face and shining hair, Entered each dwelling so lowly And left some love-token there; And he took the cedar, shining With jewels the frost had wrought, And, with fruit its boughs entwining, The homes of the children sought.

Still they tell the wondrous story,
How the children woke with glee
To find, in its fresh, bright glory,

By each bed a Christmas-tree;
And they spoke of soft, sweet music,
Such as angels only sing;

Then they knew it was the birthday
Of the glorious Christmas King.

From that day in Northland never
Was forgot the Christmas-time;
And, though foaming oceans sever
The Northland from our fair clime,
We, too, keep the birthday given
Years ago, yet new to-day,
When the kingly child of heaven
In a lowly manger lay.

Though the Christ-child to the living
Does not come with gifts each year,
Through our hands he does the giving,
Leaving plenty and good cheer;
And the children smile with gladness
As they find their gifts of love,
And each heart forgets its sadness,
While the angels sing above.

"NOT WANTED."

At a convention of liquor dealers, held in the city of Detroit, it was decided to post, at all "high-toned" saloont, signs on which was this inscription: "Not wanted: Drunkards, Bummers, and Deadbeats."

Wanted, no drunkards, or dead-beats or bummers,
But innocent boys we want, and new comers,
Just fresh from their homes, the school or the college,
Healthy and wealthy, and well stocked with knowledge,
Fond mothers' sons and fond sisters' brothers,
High-toned recruits we want and no others.

We're tired of the drunkard whose substance is wasted,
(He never tires of the drink he has tasted;)

And dead-beats and bummers are noisy, unsightly,
For tempting signs to the youths who come nightly,
Never expecting some time to resemble

These stranded wrecks, who totter and tremble
And hang round our doors, with red, bloated faces.
Why don't they infest saloons and low places?

Can they not see our dealings are ended

When they to drunkards and sots have descended?
Let them begone, for they seem to upbraid us,
Questioning all who pass by with, "Who made us?"
We cannot be our dead-beat brother's keeper-
Let him haunt places where liquor is cheaper.
Young men, in you our best hopes are implanted!
Drunkards, and bummers, and dead-beats not wanted.

THE DYING CHIEF.-WILLIAM SAWYER.

The struggle over, we, yet in the grime

And reek of fight, sought out where lay our chief,
Prone on a leopard skin, beneath an oak
Wide-spreading. With a mortal wound he lay.
His stern face bloodless, and upon his breast
Gash interlacing gash, and in the midst

A spear-thrust gaping. By his side his page,
His bright hair blood-bedabbled, knelt: his scarf,
One rent in crimson strips for bands: the rest
Fetched cooling leaves, or in their caps of steel
Came bearing water. Rueful all, and sad :
Rueful and wan, and pitying each face,

Till from the camp, heaped with the dying, now

A priest came stealing softly as a ghost,

And reached his side and knelt, and whispered hope.
But as he whispered, he who heard was still,
For death was in his heart: his part in hope

And life was done-he knew it and was still.
But when the secret priest whispered of pain

The scornful wrinkles puckered round his mouth :
And when of victory won he heeded not:
And when of rest-but then his furrowed brow
Flushed scarlet.

"Rest!" formed on the thin blue lip,

And died in gasping. "Rest!" he cried, and then

The fire of scorn flashed through him. "Rest! To me
Action is rest, and what men call repose

Is but the torturous fretting-out of life.

The eagle is not hooded into rest;
The lion chafes to madness in his cage;

And mine is not the slavish soul to lie,

Counting the spots upon this leopard-hide,

Dreaming the hours out like the boy who weaves

Verses in love-time. Peace and rest for me!

Not so is cooled the fire that in these veins
Burns into action. I am as a brand

Snatched from the watch-fire in the night, that, tossed
From hand to hand, or swiftly borne along,
Against the darkness blazes redly out,

But thrown to earth smoulders its life to dust.
What part have I in aught of rest or peace ?
Peace is to me disease-inaction, death.
For me there is no life but in the fierce
Encounter of the field: no music like

The sharp exultant blast that breaks the truce,
That slips the leash, and lets the bloodhounds go,
And in its signal frees a league of swords
Outringing with a flash! Dearer to me
Than years of silken ease, one little hour

Snatched in the battle's fore-front, when the foes,
Meeting in silence, eye to eye, brows knit,

Teeth clenched, knees set, and hand and weapon one,
Forget death, danger, glory, only feel

Strength-sinewy strength-and with it the fierce thirst That prompts to carnage!

With the scent of blood

Men madden into demons. Tiger-fierce

Their eyes; their cries the cries of beasts; their hearts As cruel and as pitiless. I know

The spur of violence, and the thirst for life,

I know the moment-life's supremest-when
The fight is fought, the stricken curse, the weak
Go down, the craven fly, and yet the tide
Of human life and passion, spraying blood,
Rages and eddies round the soldier's arm,
As still he breasts the waves, still carves a path
Through dead and dying on-and at the last,
Or falls a hero among heroes slain,

Or fights, till on a sudden yields the foe,
And breaking ranks commingling, onward pour
A torrent thundering in its gathering force--
And from the mystic sacrament of blood
Valor emerges—glory!”

On the lips

Died the faint accents: died from brow and cheek
The crimson flush, and with a groan, the chief
Fell on his face. The priest bent over him:
The little page wept glistening tears-the rest
Looked on bareheaded. Silence fell on all.

IN A HORSE CAR.-WILL H. SEMPLE.*

Written expressly for this Collection.

Did you ever notice how inclined most people are to growl about everything, and how differently different people will growl about the same thing? Now, you take money, there is hardly a woman who thinks she gets enough to spend,-and she thinks so, out loud. On the other hand, her husband or her father, he thinks she gets too much to spend, and he thinks so out loud-very loud, I might say.

Everybody is growl

Then you take the street cars. ing about the "trollies," they go "so fast; " not long since we all growled about the horse cars, they went "so slow."

I remember a little incident that occurred shortly before the arrival of the " trollies." It was in the afternoon. I was coming down town, and having plenty of time and a spare nickel, I boarded a horse-car. Well, we jogged along, in the usual mile-an-hour street car fashion, until brought to a halt by a large truck, that, for some unknown cause, had come to a stop on the track. After waiting for a long time and the driver of the truck showing no disposition to go ahead, the passengers in the car began to object.

An Englishman started it. He got up, and said to the driver. of the car: Hi beg your pardon, chappie, but caunt ye 'urry em hup a bit. Hi'm in a deuce of an 'urry, don't you know? You see me brother 'Arry h'is comin' h'over to this country, h'and Hi'm on me way down t' dock to meet 'im, h’and Hi'm afraid the bloomin' ship will be in to the dock before Hi get there, don't you know? Push on the lines, and 'urry 'em h'up a

bit, there's a good fellow."

He was interrupted at this point by an old Irish lady, with a large basket of laundried clothes: "Do yez suppose Oi payed a nickel to set in this car all day; if Oi don't get this wash home, and be back in time to

*Public Reader and Humorist.