Save for a lad's song, far and faint, There is no sound in all the wood; 10 The murmuring pines are still; their plaint At last was heard and understood.
Here floats no chime of Christmas bell, There is no voice to give me cheer; But through the pine wood all is well, 15 For God and love and peace are here.
1. What does each of the first three stanzas portray? The last three stanzas describe the sights and sounds as seen by whom?
2. Explain what pictures these phrases make for you: "sunset's flame"; "spruce boughs glow and pale"; "tumult dire"; "beautiful In vesture"; "muffled step"; "radiant shrines." Read lines 11 and 12, putting the thought in your own words.
3. Make a Christmas card, sketching one of the scenes suggested above as the corner or center decoration.
4. Meredith Nicholson (1866- ) is an American writer. He is the author of several popular novels, an essayist, and a writer of excellent verse. He lives in Indianapolis.
("Christmas in the Pines" is used by special courtesy of Mr. Nicholson.)
The following essay is a humorous treatment of the days of the year, with emphasis on the holidays and special days in the English calendar. You should read it with a sharp lookout for the play on words. Each day supposedly acts in keeping with its character, and so the New Year's dinner party is kept in high mirth. But you cannot appreciate the humor until you understand what each day stands for.
The Old Year being dead, the New Year came of age, which he does by Calendar Law as soon as the breath is out of the old gentleman's body. Nothing would serve the youth but he must give a dinner upon the occasion, to which all the Days of the Year were invited. 5
The Festivals, whom he appointed as his stewards, were mightily taken with the notion. They had been engaged time out of mind, they said, in providing mirth and cheer for mortals below; and it was time that they should have a taste of their bounty. 10
All the Days came to dinner. Covers were provided for three hundred and sixty-five guests at the principal table, with an occasional knife and fork at the sideboard for the Twenty-ninth of February.
I should have told you that invitations had been sent out. 15 The carriers were the Hours--twelve as merry little whirligig foot pages as you should desire to see. They went all around, and found out the persons invited well enough, with the exception of Easter Day, Shrove Tuesday, and a few such Movables, who had lately shifted their quarters. 20