So, lads, your choices all! Lift, maids, your voices all!
Love levels prince with the man at the plough.
We’ll make our boast of it, we’ll make our toast of it,—
Ne’er may it wither, the mistletoe bough!
The Christmas Hunter
With blare of horn and holloa,
Who is it forth doth fare?
It is the Christmas Hunter
Who rides adown the air.
Upon his wild steed, Sleipnir,
He storms across the sky;
And like the moan of ocean
His vanguard surges by.
They are the Judas-hearted,—
They are the souls of them
That spurned God’s own anointed,
The Man of Bethlehem.
For them nor peace nor joyance
At this high tide of Yule,
Since they are doomed to follow
The Hunter’s iron rule.
Rage fills his veins with riot
When peals the Christmas mirth,
For memory bears him backward
When he had power on earth.
So mad he whirls his minions
Behind him fast and far,
Without or pause or pity,
From star to utmost star.
The once almighty Odin
Whom Christ hurled from his height,
He is the Christmas Hunter
Who roams the voids of night.