Filled with children in happy play, III. Said a hard-faced skipper, “God help us all! And she lifted a quavering voice and high, IV. The fog drove down on each laboring crew, Veiled each from each and the sky and shore; There was not a sound but the breath they drew, And the lap of water and creak of oar; And they felt the breath of the downs, fresh blown O'er leagues of clover and cold gray stone, But not from the lips that had gone before. V. They come no more. But they tell the tale For the signal they know will bring relief,— VI. It is but a foolish shipman's tale, But still when the mists of doubt prevail, F. BRET HARTE XXX.-TWO VIEWS OF CHRISTMAS. SCROOGE and his NEPHEW. Scene.-The Counting-Room of Scrooge. Nephew. A merry Christmas, uncle! Scrooge. Bah! humbug! Neph. Christmas a humbug, uncle! You don't mean nat, I am sure? Scrooge. I do. Out upon merry Christmas! What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books, and having every item in 'em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I had my will, every idiot who goes about with "Merry Christmas" on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should! Neph. Uncle! Scrooge. Nephew, keep Christmas time in your own way, and let me keep it in mine. Neph. Keep it! But you don't keep it! Scrooge. Let me leave it alone, then. Much good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you! Neph. There are many good things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say, Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, apart from the veneration due to its sacred origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-travellers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say. God bless it! Scrooge. You're quite a powerful speaker, sir. I wonder you don't go into Parliament. Neph. Don't be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us to-morrow. Scrooge. I'll see you hanged first. Scrooge (contemptuously). Because you fell in love!-Good afternoon! Neph. Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before that happened. Why give it as a reason for not coming now? Scrooge. Good afternoon! Neph. I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; why cannot we be friends? Scrooge. Good afternoon! Neph. I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute. We have never had any quarrel, to which I have been a party. But I have made the trial in homage to Christmas, and I'll keep my Christmas humor to the last. So, A Merry Christmas, uncle! Scrooge. Good afternoon! Neph. And A Happy New-Year! Scrooge. Good afternoon! [Exit Nephew. CHARLES DICKENS. XXXI.—THE FORGING OF THE ANCHOR. I. NOME, see the Dolphin's anchor forged; 't is at a white heat COME, now; The bellows ceased, the flames decreased; though on the forge's brow The little flames still fitfully play through the sable mound; · II. The windlass strains the tackle chains, the black mound heaves below, And red and deep a hundred veins burst out at every throe; "Hurrah!" they shout-"leap out!-leap out!" bang, bang, the sledges go. III. Leap out, leap out, my masters; leap out and lay on load! And not an inch to flinch he deigns save when ye pitch sky-high, am I!" IV. Swing in your strokes in order, let foot and hand keep time; V. In livid and obdurate gloom, he darkens down at last, A trusted and trustworthy guard, if thou hadst life like me, What pleasures would thy toils reward beneath the deep-green sea! VI. O deep-sea diver, who might then behold such sights as thou? Then deep in tangle woods to fight the fierce sea-unicorn, And send him foiled and bellowing back, for all his ivory horn; To leave the subtle sworder-fish, of bony blade forlorn, And for the ghastly grinning shark, to laugh his jaws to scorn. VII. O broad-armed fisher of the deep, whose sports can equal thine ? VIII. O lodger in the sea-king's halls, couldst thou but understand Whose be the white bones by thy side, or who that dripping band, Slow swaying in the heaving wave, that round about thee bend, With sounds like breakers in a dream, blessing their ancient friend; O, couldst thou know what heroes glide with larger steps round thee, Thine iron side would swell with pride, thou 'dst leap within the sea! IX. Give honor to their memories, who left the pleasant strand To shed their blood so freely for the love of Fatherland- O, though our anchor may not be all I have fondly sung, S. FERGUSON. |