What means that merry clanging chime

Which fills the air with melody?

They tell me that 'tis Christmas time,

But that I think can scarcely be.

This explanation is, I say,

A little bit too thin for me,

While fiercely strikes the solar ray

Through hat of straw and puggaree.

The centigrade, I grieve to see,

Stands up at figures past belief,