Where, from the silver that rims it, Glows the red spirit of wine, Once there was longing and passion, Finding a woman divine; Blurred is the finished design, This was the scope of the plan: Death, the dry Jester's old bauble-- Drink and be glad while you can. Sorry and cynical symbol, Ghastly old caricature, We, too, must walk in thy footsteps, We but a little endure. Bah! since the end is so sure, Let us out-frolic our span, Death is a hush and a darkness-- Drink and be glad while you can. A QUEER CHRISTMAS. The Loafer seems to have fancied the company of seamen a great deal. At The Chequers few of the saltwater fellows fore-gathered, but when they did our Loafer was never long in picking them up. Here is one of the yarns which he heard. It is stuck in the Diary without reference to date, place of hearing, or anything else. Joe Glenn used to say that the queerest Christmas Day he ever spent fell in 1883, the year of the great gale. In that year there was cruel trouble, and the number of folks wearing mourning that one met in Hull and Yarmouth, and the other places, was enough to make the most light-hearted man feel miserable. Black everywhere--nothing but black at every turn; and then the women's faces looked so wistful, and the children seemed so quiet, that I couldn't bear to walk the streets. The women would question any stranger that came from the quays, and they scorned to think that there was not always a chance for their men; but the dead seamen were swinging about in the ooze far down under the grey waves, and the poor souls who went gaping and gazing day after day had all their trouble for nothing.