December Twenty-Tbird

The glory of your virtues will not terminate with your military command; it will continue to animate remote ages.

(President of Congress, to General Washington)

Washington resigns his commission as Commander-inChief, Annapolis, 1783

December Twenty-Fourth

CHRISTMAS EVE

The moon is in a tranquil mood;
The silent skies are bland:

Only the spirits of the good

Go musing up the land:

The sea is wrapped in mist and rest;
It is the night that God hath blest.

DANSKE DANDRIDGE

December Twenty-Fifth

To the cradle-bough of a naked tree,
Benumbed with ice and snow,

A Christmas dream brought suddenly
A birth of mistletoe.

The shepherd stars from their fleecy cloud
Strode out on the night to see;

The Herod north-wind blustered loud
To rend it from the tree.

But the old year took it for a sign,
And blessed it in his heart:

"With prophecy of peace divine,

Let now my soul depart.”

JOHN B. TABB

(Mistletoe)

December Twenty-Sirtb

Now praise to God that ere his grace

Was scorned and he reviled

He looked into his mother's face,

A little helpless child.

And praise to God that ere men strove

Above his tomb in war

One loved him with a mother's love,

Nor knew a creed therefor.

JOHN CHARLES MCNEILL
(A Christmas Hymn)

December Twenty-Seventb

Hear the sledges with the bells—

Silver bells!

What a world of merriment their melody foretells!

How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars, that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;

Keeping time, time, time,

In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells

From the bells, bells, bells, bells,

Bells, bells, bells

From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

EDGAR ALLAN POE

December Twenty-Eightb

In the future some historian shall come forth both strong and wise,

With a love of the Republic, and the truth, before his eyes.

He will show the subtle causes of the war between the States,

He will go back in his studies far beyond our modern dates,

He will trace our hostile ideas as the miner does the lodes,

He will show the different habits born of different social codes,

He will show the Union riven, and the picture will deplore,

He will show it re-united and made stronger

than before.

JAMES BARRON HOPE

December Twenty-Nintb

Slow and patient, fair and truthful must the coming teacher be

To show how the knife was sharpened that was ground to prune the tree.

He will hold the Scales of Justice, he will measure praise and blame,

And the South will stand the verdict, and will stand it without shame.

JAMES BARRON HOPE

Texas admitted to the Union, 1845