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 Happy the snow-locked homes wherein

He tuned his merry violin,

Or played the athlete in the barn,

Or held the good dame's winding yarn,

Or mirth-provoking versions told

Of classic legends rare and old,

Wherein the scenes of Greece and Rome

Had all the commonplace of home,

And little seemed at best the odds

'Twixt Yankee pedlers and old gods;

Where Pindus-born Araxes took

The guise of any grist-mill brook,

And dread Olympus at his will

Became a huckleberry hill.

A careless boy that night he seemed;

But at his desk he had the look

And air of one who wisely schemed,