What flavour of the good old times!

(What hopeless and egregious folly!)

What evergreens and merry chimes!

(What prickles ever lurk in holly!)

Indeed it is a merry time;

(But O! those countless Christmas numbers!)

For now we see the pantomime,

(And now the waits disturb our slumbers.)

We've kisses 'neath the mistletoe—

(I hate such rough, unseemly capers!)