CHRISTMAS NUMBER OF HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

In the which, blithe hearts are seen
Bursting into tenfold green.
Till they sit embover'd, mid sing
Under their own blossoming.
Therefore we, the woodland fairies,
Hold at present with the Lares,
Leaving Winter for the noon
Of this glowing household June;
Whereunto an added splendour
Preternatural we render,
Quickening,as with inward soul,
The intensely-burning coal.

SPIRIT OF THE MISTLETOE.

Behind the night young morn is sleeping,
And new hope underlies old weeping.
So, though all the woods are stark,
And the heavens are drowsy-dark,
Karth, within her shadows dun,
Swings about the golden sun,
Firm and steadily,
True and readily,
Strong in her pulses, every one.
In a deadly sleep she seems;
But her heart is full of dreams–––
Full of dreaming and of vision,
Subtle, typical, Elysian,
Out of which, in time, shall rise
All the New Year's verities.
And the spirit within her veins
Laughs and leaps like April rains;
Warming with electric breath
The dark coldness underneath,
Where, close shut from human seeing,
Lie the secret nests of being,
And the embryo phantoms,–––hosts
Of pale ante-natal ghosts,–––
Bloodless germs of flowers and leaves,
From which the lady Spring receives,
When they wake to life, the flush
Of her many-colour'd blush.
Meanwhile, every shade of sadness
Melts away in CHRISTMAS gladness.
Green old CHRISTMAS! he doth bring
With him his peculiar Spring;–––
Newly- germinating kindness,
Mutual help in human blindness,
Closing of old wounds, fresh greetings,
Souls a-flow at genial meetings,
Hovering fancies, loving laughter,
And the grave thoughts coming after;
All the lightness, brightness, dancing,
Interflowing, rainbow glancing.
Awful sweetness, wing'd with pleasure,
Of a heart that has no measure.

ALL.

Therefore will we here remain
Till the woods are green again,
And the sun makes golden glooms
In the forest's pillar'd rooms.
Here we ran abide together
Through the fire-lit CHRISTMAS weather,
And, though none may us descry,
Touch with sense of mystery
The hot feasting and loud joy,
Which, uncurb'd, themselves destroy,
And die childless: for true mirth,
Like the Heaven-embraced earth,
Should be large and full yet bound
By the haunted depths all round.

WHAT CHRISTMAS IS IN COUNTRY
PLACES.

IF we want to see the good old Christmas–––
the traditional Christmas–––of old England, we
must look for it in the country. There are
lasting reasons why the keeping of Christinas
cannot change in the country as it may in
towns. The seasons themselves ordain the
festival. The close of the year is an interval
of leisure in agricultural regions; the only
interval of complete leisure in the year; and
all influences and opportunities concur to
make it a season of holiday and festivity. If
the weather is what it ought to be at that
time, the autumn crops are in the ground;
and the springing wheat is safely covered up
with snow. Everything is done for the soil
that can be done at present; and as for the
clearing and trimming and repairing, all that
can be looked to in the after part of the
winter; and the planting is safe if done
before Candlemas. The plashing of hedges,
and cleaning of ditches, and trimming of
lanes, and mending of roads, can be got
through between Twelfth Night and the early
spring ploughing; and a fortnight may well
be given to jollity, and complete change.

Such a holiday requires a good deal of pre-
paration: so Christmas is, in this way also, a
more weighty affair in the rural districts than
elsewhere. The strong beer must be brewed.
The pigs must be killed weeks before; the
lard is wanted; the bacon has to be cured;
the hams will be in request; and, if brawn is
sent to the towns, it must be ready before the
children come home for the holidays. Then,
there is the fattening of the turkeys and geese
to be attended to; a score or two of them to
be sent to London, and perhaps half-a-dozen
to be enjoyed at home. When the gentle-
man, or the farmer, or the country shop-keeper,
goes to the great town for his happy boys-
and girls, he has a good deal of shopping to
do. Besides carrying a note to the haber-
dasher, and ordering coffee, tea, dried fruit,
and spices, he must remember not to forget the
packs of cards that will be wanted for loo and
whist. Perhaps he carries a secret order for
fiddlestrings from a neighbour who is practis-
ing his part in good time.

There is one order of persons in the country
to whom the month of December is any thing
but a holiday season–––the cooks. Don't tell
us of town-cooks in the same breath! It is
really overpowering to the mind to think
what the country cooks have to attend to.
The goose-pie, alone, is an achievement to be
complacent about; even the most ordinary
goose-pie; still more, a superior one, with a
whole goose in the middle, and another cut
up and laid round; with a fowl or two,
and a pheasant or two, and a few larks put
into odd corners; and the top, all shiny with
white of egg, ligured over with leaves of
pastry, and tendrils and crinkle-crankles, with
a bunch of the more delicate bird feet standing