Oh! happy, tricksome time of mirth
Giv’n to the stars of sky and earth!
May all the best of feeling know,
The custom of the Mistletoe!
Spread out the laurel and the bay,
For chimney-piece and window gay:
Scour the brass gear—a shining row,
And Holly place with Mistletoe.
Married and single, proud and free,
Yield to the season, trim with glee:
Time will not stay,—he cheats us, so—
A kiss?—’tis gone!—the Mistletoe.
Dec. 1826.
*, *, P.
A Gloomy Morning before Christmas.
It is methinks a morning full of fate!
It riseth slowly, as her sullen car
Had all the weights of sleep and death hung at it!
She is not rosy-finger’d, but swoln black!
Her face is like a water turn’d to blood,
And her sick head is bound about with clouds
As if she threatened night ere noon of day!
It does not look as it would have a hail
Or health wished in it, as of other morns.
Jonson.