Dedication To Hewitt Hanson Howland With Halest Christmas Greetings And Fraternal

With Hale Affection And Abiding Faith These Rhymes And Pictures Are Inscribed To The Children Everywhere




He owns the bird-songs of the hills -
The laughter of the April rills;
And his are all the diamonds set
In Morning's dewy coronet, -
And his the Dusk's first minted stars
That twinkle through the pasture-bars
And litter all the skies at night
With glittering scraps of silver light; -
The rainbow's bar, from rim to rim,
In beaten gold, belongs to him.

I had fed the fire and stirred it, till the sparkles in delight
Snapped their saucy little fingers at the chill December night;
And in dressing-gown and slippers, I had tilted back "my throne"
The old split-bottomed rocker - and was musing all alone.

I could hear the hungry Winter prowling round the outer door,
And the tread of muffled footsteps on the white piazza floor;
But the sounds came to me only as the murmur of a stream
That mingled with the current of a lazy-flowing dream.

Like a fragrant incense rising, curled the smoke of my cigar,
With the lamplight gleaming through it like a mist-enfolded star;
And as I gazed, the vapor like a curtain rolled away,
With a sound of bells that tinkled, and the clatter of a sleigh.

And in a vision, painted like a pictur...

I had fed the fire and stirred it, till the sparkles in delight
Snapped their saucy little fingers at the chill December night;
And in dressing-gown and slippers, I had tilted back "my throne" -
The old split-bottomed rocker - and was musing all alone.

I could hear the hungry Winter prowling round the outer door,
And the tread of muffled footsteps on the white piazza floor;
But the sounds came to me only as the murmur of a stream
That mingled with the current of a lazy-flowing dream.

Like a fragrant incense rising, curled the smoke of my cigar,
With the lamplight gleaming through it like a mist-enfolded star; -
And as I gazed, the vapor like a curtain rolled away,
With a sound of bells that tinkled, and the clatter of a sleigh.

And in a vision, painted like a pi...

    We got up a Christmas-doin's
        Last Christmas Eve -
    Kindo' dimonstration
        'At I railly believe
    Give more satisfaction -
        Take it up and down -
    Than ary intertainment
        Ever come to town!

    Railly was a theater -
        That's what it was, -
    But, bein' in the church, you know,
        We had a "Santy Clause" -
    So 's to git the old folks
        To patternize, you see,
    And back the institootion up
        Kindo' morally.

    Schoolteacher writ the thing -
        (Was a friend o' mine),
    Got it out o' Longfeller's
        Pome "Evangeline" -
    Er some'rs - 'bout the Purituns - .
        Anyway, the part
    "...