by Mortimer Collins.
Originally published in Belgravia (John Maxwell) vol.1 #3 (Jan 1867).
I.
God save you, merry gentlemen! let nothing you dismay,
And joyous be your festival this holy Christmas Day;
And let the yule-log blaze away and scare the midnight gloom,
While the winter wind is howling around your pleasant room;
And let the ruddy wine flash up, and jocund songs go round,
While the waits their antique music bring, and the boisterous bells resound.
For lo, it is the time of joy—of Christ our Saviour's birth,
Who was the first true gentleman that ever trod this earth.[1]
II.
God save you, lovely ladies all! as in the dance ye go,
Or blush to find a conqueror 'neath mystic mistletoe!
For lo, it was a lady bright—of royal race was she—
To whose fair breast clung baby Christ in distant Galilee.
O, who can tell her wonder and terror and delight,
When the presence of the Holy One o'ershadowed her at night?
O, who can dream her gladness, on that humble stable-sod,
When she heard her Child's first feeble cry, and knew that Child was God?
III.
God save the poor and weary ones! for Christ our King was poor,
And they made His infant cradle behind a stable door;
In palace chambers dwelt He not, nor sought soft beds for sleep:
O, be ye tender to the poor, if ye would Christmas keep!
O, never grasp your gold too hard, or sneer at human woe,
But let gay hearts and generous hands together always go!
May gentle thoughts and liberal deeds within our land increase!
God save our Sovereign Lady, and keep the Realm in peace!
1. This boldly expressed idea is borrowed from the second part of a play by Thomas Decker, bearing a title offensive to modern notions of refinement[i], but nevertheless stored with passages of exquisite beauty, like the following:
"Duke. ... He whose breast is tender, blood so cool
That no wrongs heat it, is a patient fool;
What comfort do you find in being so cool?
Candino. That which green wounds receive from sov'reign balm.
Patience, my lord! why, 'tis the soul of peace:
Of all the virtues 'tis nearest kin to heaven;
It makes men look like gods. The best of men
That e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer,
A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit—
The first true gentleman that ever breath'd."
"This," says Hazlitt, in his Lectures on the Literature of the Age of Elizabeth, "was honest old Decker; and the lines ought to embalm his memory to every one who has a sense either of religion, or philosophy, or humanity, or true genius."—Ed. Belgravia.
i. The Honest Whore.