Where the happy children throng and shout,
What shadow seems to flit about?

Is it the mother, then, who died

Ere the greens were sere last Christmas-tide?
Hush, falling chimes! Cease, cease, my

rhymes!

The guests are gathered now.

Edmund Clarence Stedman.

Christmas in India.

171

CHRISTMAS IN INDIA.

Dim dawn the tamarisks-the sky is saffronyellow

As the women in the village grind the corn, And the parrots seek the riverside, each calling to his fellow

That the day, the staring eastern day, is

born.

Oh, the white dust on the highway! Oh, the stenches in the by-way!

Oh, the clammy fog that hovers over earth! And at home they're making merry 'neath the white and scarlet berry

What part have India's exiles in their mirth?

Full day behind the tamarisks-the sky is blue and staring

As the cattle crawl afield beneath the yoke, And they bear one o'er the field-path who is past all hope or caring,

To the ghat below the curling wreaths of smoke.

Call on Rama, going slowly, as ye bear a brother lowly

Call on Rama-he may hear, perhaps, your

With our hymn-books and our psalters we appeal to other altars,

And to-day we bid "good Christian men rejoice!"

High noon above the tamarisks—the sun is hot above us

As at home the Christmas Day is breaking

wan,

They will drink our healths at dinner-those who tell us how they love us,

And forget us till another year be gone! Oh, the toil that knows no breaking! Oh! the heimweh, ceaseless, aching!

Oh, the black, dividing sea and alien plain! Youth was cheap-wherefore we sold it. Gold was good-we hoped to hold it,

And to-day we know the fulness of our gain.

Gray dusk behind the tamarisks-the parrots fly together

As the sun is sinking slowly over home; And his last ray seems to mock us, shackled in a lifelong tether

That drags us back, howe'er so far we roam. Hard her service, poor her payment—she in ancient, tattered raiment

India, she the grim stepmother of our kind.

Christmas in India.

173

If a year of life be lent her, if her temple's

shrine we enter,

The door is shut-we may not look behind.

Black night behind the tamarisks-the owls begin their chorus

As the conches from the temple scream and

bray.

With the fruitless years behind us and the hopeless years before us,

Let us honor, O, my brothers, Christmas Day!

Call a truce, then, to our labors-let us feast with friends and neighbors,

And be merry as the custom of our caste; For, if "faint and forced the laughter," and if sadness follow after,

We are richer by one mocking Christmas

past.

Rudyard Kipling.

15*

CHRISTMAS VIOLETS.

Last night I found the violets
You sent me once across the sea;
From gardens that the winter frets,
In summer lands they came to me.

Still fragrant of the English earth,
Still humid from the frozen dew,
To me they spoke of Christmas mirth,
They spoke of England, spoke of you.

The flowers are scentless, black, and sere, The perfume long has passed away; The sea whose tides are year by year chill and gray.

Is set between us,

But

you have reached a windless age, The haven of a happy clime;

You do not dread the winter's rage, Although we missed the summer-time.

And like the flower's breath over sea,
Across the gulf of time and pain,
To-night returns the memory

Of love that lived not all in vain.

Andrew Lang.