A CHRISTMAS LEGEND.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume VI, Issue 11, 28 January 1905, Page 1 (Supplement)

A CHRISTMAS LEGEND.

A soldier, in a scarlet coat One winter long ago, Went out and met a pretty maid In woodlands white with snow; She stood beneath an ancient oak; Her name was Mistletoe. Hi* cheeks and lips were glowing red, Like poppies in the wheat; Her locks were twined with milky pearls, Her eyes were blue and s-weet; He looked and loved, and, kneeling, laid His saber at her feet. - rom icy regions of the Pole The norther blew all night, And hung the branches of the pine With tinkling fringes bright, And made beneath the aged oak A frozen mound of white. But when the panes are. thick with froft And nights are bitter chill, Apd silence, in a crystal coat, Has ceased the sUver rill, The wintry woodland still. Wien with the burden of its years Jhe oak is bending low, Tbe soldier-boy stiff and straight, stands bravely in the snow, l 4 Slender saber still unsheathed To guard the mistletoe.