The days are sad, it is the Holy tide:

Be dusky mistletoes and hollies strown,

Sharp as the spear that pierced His sacred side,
Red as the drops upon His thorny crown;
No haggard passion and no lawless mirth
Fright off the sombre Muse,-tell sweet old tales.
Sing songs, as we sit brooding o'er the hearth,
Till the lamp flickers, and the memory fails.

Old Yule Night

F. Tennyson.

On hearing a distant Horn

HE Horn again! again!
In the winter night,
When stars are bright,
It shakes the frozen pane:

The banner waves upon the rood,
It stirs a Sire's forgotten blood,
And starts the sullen vein:
It lifts the dog's ear breathlessly,
He moans, and listens restlessly—
The Horn! again! again!

Follow! follow!

O'er hill and hollow,

Where never deer was ta'en!
By vale and wood,

O'er stream and flood,

Give back the phantom strain!
The mellow mouth is deep and worn,
And dim the carving round the Horn
Where mighty hands have lain,

Courting the agèd finger-tips-
Sound it aloud with trembling lips!
The Horn! again! again!

The cry is up,

The heart is up,

And longeth to be gone:

For heroes ride to meet the morn,

And with them rides great Odin's son!

With thundering hoof and streaming mane
He gathers warriors to his train;
Breathe hard and fast,

The Night is past,
And melts upon the plain!

Under the Dawn

The boats are drawn
Down from the flashing beach,
In the tossing line

Of the foamy brine,

With a golden prow to each,
And the glittering light of helm and spear
And the sounding cry of a mighty cheer
To greet the Sun

And the Day begun,

Or e'er the god appear!

But what is he

That rides with me
And clogs my bridle rein?
Thicker, fleeter,

Faster, sweeter,

The Horn! again! again!
It faints, it fails, it dies away,
To join the far, the bright affray,
Leaving the heart forlorn

For the faded light and the vanished dawn

Of that immortal Day!

Alice M. Buckton.

Wassail Chorus at the Mermaid

|HRISTMAS knows a merry, merry place,
Where he goes with fondest face,
Brightest eye, brightest hair:

Tell the Mermaid where is that one place:
Where?

Raleigh.

'Tis by Devon's glorious halls,

Whence, dear Ben, I come again:
Bright with golden roofs and walls-

El Dorado's rare domain

Seem those halls when sunlight launches Shafts of gold thro' leafless branches, Where the winter's feathery mantle blanches Field and farm and lane.

Chorus.

Christmas knows a merry, merry place, &c.

Drayton.

'Tis where Avon's wood-sprites weave
Through the boughs a lace of rime,
While the bells of Christmas Eve

Fling for Will the Stratford-chime

O'er the river-flags embossed

Rich with flowery runes of frost

O'er the meads where snowy tufts are tossed-
Strains of olden time.

Chorus.

Christmas knows a merry, merry place, &c.

Shakespeare's Friend.

'Tis, methinks, on any ground

Where our Shakespeare's feet are set. There smiles Christmas, holly-crowned With his blithest coronet: Friendship's face he loveth well:

'Tis a countenance whose spell Sheds a balm o'er every mead and dell Where we used to fret.

Chorus.

Christmas knows a merry, merry place, &c.

Heywood.

More than all the pictures, Ben,
Winter weaves by wood or stream,
Christmas loves our London, when

Rise thy clouds of wassail-steam-
Clouds like these, that, curling, take
Forms of faces gone, and wake

Many a lay from lips we loved, and make
London like a dream.

Chorus.

Christmas knows a merry, merry place, &c.

Ben Jonson.

Love's old songs shall never die,
Yet the new shall suffer proof;
Love's old drink of Yule brew I,
Wassail for new love's behoof,
Drink the drink I brew, and sing
Till the berried branches swing,

Till our song make all the Mermaid ring—
Yea, from rush to roof.

Finale.

Christmas loves this merry, merry place:-
Christmas saith with fondest face,

Brightest eye, brightest hair:

"Ben! the drink tastes rare of sack and mace:

Rare!"

Theodore Watts-Dunton.

Good King Wenceslas

OOD King Wenceslas look'd out
On the Feast of Stephen,
When the snow lay round about,
Deep, and crisp, and even:

Brightly shone the moon that night,

Though the frost was cruel,

When a poor man came in sight,

Gath'ring winter fuel.

"Hither, page, and stand by me, If thou know'st it, telling, Yonder peasant, who is he?

Where and what his dwelling?" "Sire, he lives a good league hence, Underneath the mountain;

Right against the forest fence,

By Saint Agnes' fountain.'

"Bring me flesh, and bring me wine, Bring me pine-logs hither;

Thou and I will see him dine,

When we bear them thither."

Page and monarch forth they went,

Forth they went together; Through the rude wind's wild lament And the bitter weather.