And evermore shall your life be blest,
Though your treasures now are few,

Since you gave for your country's good the

best

God ever gave to you!

Phoebe Cary

MOTHERHOOD

MOTHER of Christ long slain, forth glided she,

Following the children joyously astir Under the cedars and the olive-tree,

Pausing to let their laughter float to her. Each voice an echo of a voice more dear, She saw a little Christ in every face. When lo! another woman, passing near, Yearned o'er the tender life that filled the

place,

And Mary sought the woman's hand, and said:

"I know thee not, yet know thee memorytossed

And what hath led thee here, as I am

led

These bring to thee a child beloved and

lost."

"How radiant was my little one!

And He was fair,

Yea fairer than the fairest sun,

And like its rays through amber spun

His sun-bright hair,

Still, I can see it shine and shine!"

"Even so," the woman said, "was mine."

"His ways were ever darling ways," And Mary smiled,

"So soft and clinging! Glad relays

Of love were all his precious days-
My little child

Was like an infinite that gleamed."

"Even so was mine," the woman dreamed.

Then whispered Mary: "Tell me, thou

Of thine!" And she:

"Oh, mine was rosy as a bough Blooming with roses, sent, somehow,

To bloom for me!

His balmy fingers left a thrill

Within my breast that warms me still."

Then gazed she down some wilder, darker hour

And said, when Mary questioned knowing

not:

"Who art thou, mother of so sweet a

flower?"

"I am the mother of Iscariot."

Agnes Lee

THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR, LENOX TILDEN FOUNDATIONS

HYMN ON THE NATIVITY

IT was the winter wild,

While the heaven-born child

All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;

Nature, in awe of him,

Had doffed her gaudy trim,

With her great Master so to sympathize: It was no season then for her

To wanton with the sun, her lusty para

mour.

Only with speeches fair

She wooes the gentle air,

To hide her guilty front with innocent

snow;

And on her naked shame,

Pollute with sinful blame,

The saintly veil of maiden-white to throw; Confounded, that her Maker's eyes

Should look so near upon her foul deformities.

But he, her fears to cease,

Sent down the meek-eyed Peace:

She, crowned with olive green, came softly

sliding