The Bird of Yule. 181 



than in his pictures of song, and mirth, and revelry, 

 round the branches of the Christmas Tree. 



And the pathos of his tender story may well soften 

 our hearts as we watch the red tongues leaping high 

 about the logs of Yule. It was a pleasant fancy that 

 all jealousy and mistrust, and memory of bitter words, 

 passed in the flames of the Christmas fire. 



There is ever a vein of sadness in the midst of 

 mirth. In many an eye a mist will gather in thinking 

 of the vacant chair : 



1 A narrowing circle, year by year, 



Draws round the hearth on Christmas Day. 



Ah me ! for faces kind and dear, 

 Dispersed through regions far away, 



Or passed unto that shadowy shore 



Whence never echo travels o'er.' 



These are hard times. In many a dark and desolate 

 home there will be no Christmas cheer, no roaring log, 

 no lighted tree. And among the happy and light- 

 hearted who gather round the board to commemorate 

 this, the fairest day that ever dawned on suffering, sad 

 humanity, those who out of the fulness of their festal 

 cheer can feel that they have lighted the cold hearth 

 and gladdened the heavy heart of one single sorrowful, 

 struggling fellow-mortal, will find their own joy the 

 sweeter, and their roaring Yule log brighter still, for 

 thinking of the outcast and the orphan, for the hand 

 held out to the widow and the fatherless ; and though 



