Sunday, December 28, 1879

A dim, vague shrinking haunts my soul,My spirit bodeth ill–As some far-off restraining bankHad burst, and waters, many a rank,Were marching on my hill; As if I had no fire withinFor thoughts to sit about;As if I had no flax to spin,No lamp to lure the good things inAnd keep the bad things out. The …

Christmas, 1884

Though in my heart no Christmas glee,Though my song-bird be dumb,Jesus, it is enough for meThat thou art come.What though the loved be scattered far,Few at the board appear,In thee, O Lord, they gathered are,And thou art here.And if our hearts be low with lack,They are not therefore numb;Not always will thy day come back--Thyself …

Noel

Grim was the world and grey last night:The moon and stars were fled,The hall was dark without song or light,The fires were fallen dead.The wind in the trees was like to the sea,And over the mountains’ teethIt whistled bitter-cold and free,As a sword leapt from its sheath.The lord of snows upreared his head;His mantle long …

The Following of the Star

Let us not take with such smooth surrender these tenth-truths at tenth hand, such as the phrase that Christmas is pagan in origin. Let us know exactly how much it really means. It amounts, so far as our knowledge goes, solely to this- that primitive, Scandinavians did hold a feast in midwinter. What the dickens …

A Book so Read

"To enjoy a book like that thoroughly I find I have to treat it as a sort of hobby and set about it seriously. I begin by making a map on one of the end leafs: then I put in a genealogical tree or two. Then I put a running headline at the top of …