place on Christmas Eve. The custom descended from heathen times. From Swedish and Danish jul, Christmas.

17. Beautiful Gate is apparently a reference to Acts iii. 2, and Josephus ("The Jewish War," Book V, chap. v., 3), where a magnificent column, fifty cubits in height, is described in connection with a gate supposed by some to be the "gate Beautiful" of Scripture.

18. This lesson of human sympathy and love is one that Lowell frequently enforces. In "A Parable," Christ is made to say to the chief priests and rulers and kings:

"Have ye founded your thrones and altars, then,

On the bodies and souls of living men?

And think ye that building shall endure,

Which shelters the noble and crushes the poor?"

19. In his "My Garden Acquaintances," Lowell devoted a delightful paragraph to the oriole, or hangbird, mentioning especially its nest in the elm.

XV

SELECTIONS FROM WHITTIER

MEMORIES

A BEAUTIFUL and happy girl,

With step as light as summer air, Eyes glad with smiles, and brow of pearl, Shadowed by many a careless curl

Of unconfined and flowing hair,

A seeming child in everything,

Save thoughtful brow and ripening charms,

As Nature wears the smile of Spring

When sinking into Summer's arms.

A mind rejoicing in the light

Which melted through its graceful bower, Leaf after leaf, dew-moist and bright, And stainless in its holy white,

1

Unfolding like a morning flower:
A heart, which, like a fine-toned lute,
With every breath of feeling woke,
And, even when the tongue was mute,
From eye and lip in music spoke.

How thrills once more the lengthening chain
Of memory, at the thought of thee!
Old hopes which long in dust have lain,
Old dreams, come thronging back again,
And boyhood lives again in me;

I feel its glow upon my cheek,

Its fulness of the heart is mine,

As when I leaned to hear thee speak,

Or raised my doubtful eye to thine.

I hear again thy low replies,

I feel thy arm within my own, And timidly again uprise

The fringed lids of hazel eyes,

With soft brown tresses overblown. Ah! memories of sweet summer eves,

Of moonlit wave and willowy way, Of stars and flowers, and dewy leaves,

And smiles and tones more dear than they!

Ere this, thy quiet eye hath smiled
My picture of thy youth to see,
When, half a woman, half a child,
Thy very artlessness beguiled,

And folly's self seemed wise in thee;
I too can smile, when o'er that hour

The lights of memory backward stream,
Yet feel the while that manhood's power
Is vainer than my boyhood's dream.

Years have passed on, and left their trace,
Of graver care and deeper thought;
And unto me the calm, cold face

Of manhood, and to thee the grace

Of woman's pensive beauty brought.

More wide, perchance, for blame than praise, The school-boy's humble name has flown; Thine, in the green and quiet ways

Of unobtrusive goodness known.

And wider yet in thought and deed

Diverge our pathways, one in youth; Thine the Genevan's sternest creed,2 While answers to my spirit's need

The Derby dalesman's simple truth.3 For thee, the priestly rite and prayer, And holy day and solemn psalm;

For me, the silent reverence where

My brethren gather, slow and calm.

Yet hath thy spirit left on me

An impress Time hath worn not out,
And something of myself in thee,
A shadow from the past, I see,

Lingering, even yet, thy way about;
Not wholly can the heart unlearn
That lesson of its better hours,
Not yet hath Time's dull footstep worn

To common dust that path of flowers.
Thus, while at times before our eyes
The shadows melt, and fall apart,
And, smiling through them, round us lies
The warm light of our morning skies,
The Indian Summer of the heart!

In secret sympathies of mind,

In founts of feeling which retain Their pure, fresh flow, we yet may find Our early dreams not wholly vain!

Up!-up! - in nobler toil than ours
No craftsmen bear a part:
We make of Nature's giant powers
The slaves of human Art.

Lay rib to rib, and beam to beam,
And drive the treenails 5 free;
Nor faithless joint nor yawning seam
Shall tempt the searching sea!

Where'er the keel of our good ship

The sea's rough field shall plough, — Where'er her tossing spars shall drip With salt-spray caught below, That ship must heed her master's beck, Her helm obey his hand,

And seamen tread her reeling deck
As if they trod the land.

Her oaken ribs the vulture-beak

Of Northern ice may peel;

The sunken rock and coral peak
May grate along her keel;
And know we well the painted shell

We give to wind and wave,

Must float, the sailor's citadel,

Or sink, the sailor's grave!

Ho! strike away the bars and blocks,

And set the good ship free!

Why lingers on these dusty rocks