Stilled on the ears of the seraph choir Let the lingering hymns of the season go, As they sweep their hands o’er the golden wire To the anthem of love and peace below; And let us keep in a holy mood The coming hours of that sacred time When the word went forth for the hush of blood And the passing knell for the soul of crime! When the hosts of the upper region stirred That another star came forth to shine, And the rush of an angel’s wing was heard O’er the moonlit plains of Palestine, And a softer light o’er the earth was flung And the pale stars waxed no longer dim, And forth on a thousand harps outrung The rising notes of the angels’ hymn. The same bright stars that then looked down With a guardian watch o’er hill and plain, Unfading gems in the starry crown Glittering on in the blue remain, And the solemn awe that crept them round As they watched their flocks that holy time, An echo with us to-night has found In the new-born light of another clime. It has been felt this many a year, The sacred spell of the season’s death, And the brighter glow of the starry sphere As it came that time with the angels’ breath, For brighter yet the stars gleam out As the noisome vapor shrinks away From the open glade that it hung about Darkened and damp this many a day. List how the spirit-breathings come Upon our ears from the voice sublime Of him who ruled in the spirits’ home, Who wrote and sang for the end of time! Hark how he tells when the time is near, The bird of the dawn sings all night long And the fairy legions disappear When he comes abroad with his matin song. No spirits forth, nor the rank compound That glows with the witches’ midnight toil, No deeps of the forest-close resound With the wizard shriek and the caldron boil. No planets chill the warm heart’s blood With the mockery of a demon fire, No vapors veil with a sickly shroud The moss-grown top of the old church spire,— For he who stood in that dreadful watch On the gray rampart of Elsinore Told how they ceased from their revel catch And their reign at the Christmas time was o’er; We feel it now, as he felt it then, That the air is full of holiness, And we need not forms from the earth again Of the starry hosts to guard and bless. Then stilled on the ears of the seraph choir Let the lingering hymns of the season go, As they sweep their hands o’er the golden wire To the anthem of love and peace below; And let us keep in a holy mood The passing hours of that sacred time When the word went forth for the hush of blood And the passing knell for the soul of crime! * * * * * THE LADIES’ LIBRARY.