No More Learning

Thus we became the sport of Fate.

"For I was out till after one,
Surveying chimney-tops and roofs,
And planning how it could be done
Without my reindeers' bouncing hoofs.

"`My dear,' says Mrs. Claus, that night
(A most superior woman she! )
`It never, never can be right
That you, deep-sunk in poverty,

"`This year should leave your poor old bed,
And trot about, bent down with toys,
(There's Kris a-crying now for bread! )
To give to other people's boys.

"`Since you've been out, the news arrives
The Elfs' Insurance Company's gone.
Ah, Claus, those premiums! Now, our lives
Depend on yours: thus griefs go on.

"`And even while you're thus harassed,
I do believe, if out you went,
You'd go, in spite of all that's passed,
To the children of that President! '

"Oh, Charley, Harry, Nimblewits,
These eyes, that night, ne'er slept a wink.
My path seemed honeycombed with pits.
Naught could I do but think and think.

"But, with the day, my courage rose.
Ne'er shall my boys, MY boys (I cried),
When Christmas morns their eyes unclose,
Find empty stockings gaping wide!
"Then hewed and whacked and whittled I;
The wife, the girls and Kris took fire;
They spun, sewed, cut, -- till by and by
We made, at home, my pack entire! "

(He handed me a bundle, here. )
"Now, hoist me up: there, gently: quick!
Dear boys, DON'T look for much this year:
Remember, Santa Claus is sick! "

____
Baltimore, December, 1877.






Dialect Poems.






A Florida Ghost.



Down mildest shores of milk-white sand,
By cape and fair Floridian bay,
Twixt billowy pines -- a surf asleep on land --
And the great Gulf at play,

Past far-off palms that filmed to nought,
Or in and out the cunning keys
That laced the land like fragile patterns wrought
To edge old broideries,

The sail sighed on all day for joy,
The prow each pouting wave did leave
All smile and song, with sheen and ripple coy,
Till the dusk diver Eve

Brought up from out the brimming East
The oval moon, a perfect pearl.
In that large lustre all our haste surceased,
The sail seemed fain to furl,

The silent steersman landward turned,
And ship and shore set breast to breast.
Under a palm wherethrough a planet burned
We ate, and sank to rest.

But soon from sleep's dear death (it seemed)
I rose and strolled along the sea
Down silver distances that faintly gleamed
On to infinity.

Till suddenly I paused, for lo!
A shape (from whence I ne'er divined)
Appeared before me, pacing to and fro,
With head far down inclined.

`A wraith' (I thought) `that walks the shore
To solve some old perplexity. '
Full heavy hung the draggled gown he wore;
His hair flew all awry.

He waited not (as ghosts oft use)
To be `dearheaven'd!