QUITE LIKE A STOCKING.

Just as morn was fading amid her misty rings,

And every stocking was stuffed with childhood’s precious things,

Old Kris Kringle looked round and saw on the elm tree bough

High hung, an oriole’s nest, lonely and empty now.

“Quite like a stocking,” he laughed, “hung up there in the tree,

I didn’t suppose the birds expected a visit from me.”

Then old Kris Kringle who loves a joke as well as the best,

Dropped a handful of snowflakes into the oriole’s empty nest.

—Anon.

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to sea

In a beautiful pea-green boat;

They took some honey, and plenty of money

Wrapped up in a five-pound note.

The Owl looked up to the moon above,

And sang to a small guitar,

“O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love!

What a beautiful Pussy you are—

You are,

What a beautiful Pussy you are!”

Pussy said to the owl, “You elegant fowl!

How wonderfully sweet you sing!

Oh, let us be married—too long we have tarried—

But what shall we do for a ring?”

They sailed away for a year and a day

To the land where the Bong-tree grows,

And there in a wood, a piggy-wig stood

With a ring in the end of his nose—

His nose,

With a ring in the end of his nose.

“Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling

Your ring?” Said the piggy, “I will.”

So they took it away, and were married next day

By the turkey who lives on the hill.

They dined upon mince and slices of quince,

Which they ate with a runcible spoon,

And hand in hand on the edge of the sand

They danced by the light of the moon—

The moon,

They danced by the light of the moon.

—Edward Lear.