THE OPEN WINDOW. I saw the nursery windows The large Newfoundland house-dog They walked not under the lindens, The birds sang in the branches, But the voices of the children Will be heard in dreams alone! And the boy that walked beside me, He could not understand Why closer in mine, ah! closer, I pressed his warm, soft hand! KING WITLAF'S DRINKING-HORN. That, whenever they sat at their revels, So sat they once at Christmas, In their beards the red wine glistened They drank to the soul of Witlaf, They drank to the Saints and Martyrs And as soon as the horn was empty And the reader droned from the pulpit, Till the great bells of the convent, Proclaimed the midnight hour. And the Yule-log cracked in the chimney, And the flamelets flapped and flickered, Yet still in his pallid fingers He clutched the golden bowl, In which, like a pearl dissolving, But not for this their revels The jovial monks forbore, For they cried, "Fill high the goblet! |