DECEMBER TWENTIETH

Works do follow us all unto God; there stand and bear witness

Not what they seemed, but what they were only. Blessed is he who

Hears their confession secure; they are mute upon earth until death's hand

Opens the mouth of the silent.

The Children of the Lord's Supper

DECEMBER TWENTY-FIRST

Therefore love and believe; for works will follow spontaneous

Even as day does the sun; the Right from the Good is an offspring,

Love in a bodily shape; and Christian works are no more than

Animate Love and Faith, as flowers are the animate spring-tide.

The Children of the Lord's Supper

DECEMBER TWENTY-SECOND

Our Lord and Master,

When he departed, left us in his will,

As our best legacy on earth, the poor!
These we have always with us; had we not,
Our hearts would grow as hard as are these stones.

The Golden Legend

Still let it ever be thy pride
To linger by the laborer's side;
With words of sympathy or song
To cheer the dreary march along
Of the great army of the poor,
O'er desert sand, o'er dangerous moor.
Nor to thyself the task shall be
Without reward; for thou shalt learn
The wisdom early to discern
True beauty in utility.

To a Child

A Christmas Carol

DECEMBER TWENTY-FIFTH

Hail to thee, Jesus of Nazareth!

Though in a manger thou drawest thy breath, Thou art greater than Life and Death, Greater than Joy or Woe!

This cross upon the line of life
Portendeth struggle, toil, and strife,
And through a region with dangers rife
In darkness shalt thou go!

The Golden Legend

DECEMBER TWENTY-SIXTH

O the long and dreary Winter!
O the cold and cruel Winter!
Ever thicker, thicker, thicker
Froze the ice on lake and river,
Ever deeper, deeper, deeper

Fell the snow o'er all the landscape,
Fell the covering snow, and drifted
Through the forest, round the village.

The Song of Hiawatha

DECEMBER TWENTY-SEVENTH

Winter giveth the fields and the trees, so old,

Their beards of icicles and snow;

And the rain, it raineth so fast and cold,

We must cower over the embers low;

And, snugly housed from the wind and weather, Mope like birds that are changing feather.

Spring

O holy Father! pardon in me
The oscillation of a mind
Unsteadfast, and that cannot find
Its centre of rest and harmony!
For evermore before mine eyes
This ghastly phantom flits and flies,
And as a madman through a crowd,
With frantic gestures and wild cries,
It hurries onward, and aloud
Repeats its awful prophecies!
Weakness is wretchedness! To be strong
Is to be happy! I am weak,
And cannot find the good I seek,
Because I feel and fear the wrong!

The Golden Legend

DECEMBER TWENTY-NINTH

We have not wings, we cannot soar;
But we have feet to scale and climb
By slow degrees, by more and more,
The cloudy summits of our time.

The mighty pyramids of stone

That wedge-like cleave the desert airs, When nearer seen, and better known,

Are but gigantic flights of stairs.

The Ladder of St. Augustine

DECEMBER THIRTIETH

Nor deem the irrevocable Past,
As wholly wasted, wholly vain,
If, rising on its wrecks, at last

To something nobler we attain.

The Ladder of St. Augustine

DECEMBER THIRTY-FIRST

The book is completed,

And closed, like the day;

And the hand that has written it

Lays it away.

Curfew