CCCXXXVIII

THY KING COMETH

YET if His Majesty, our sovereign lord,

Should of his own accord

Friendly himself invite,

And say 'I'll be your guest to-morrow night,’

How should we stir ourselves, call and command

All hands to work!

'Let no man idle stand.

Set me fine Spanish tables in the hall;

See they be fitted all;

Let there be room to eat

And order taken that there want no meat.

See every sconce and candlestick made bright, That without tapers they may give a light. Look to the presence: are the carpets spread, The dazie o'er the head,

The cushions in the chairs,

And all the candles lighted on the stairs?
Perfume the chambers, and, in any case,
Let each man give attendance in his place!'

Thus if a king were coming would we do;
And 'twere good reason too;

For 'tis a duteous thing

To show all honour to an earthly king,
And after all our travail and our cost,
So he be pleased, to think no labour lost.

CEREMONIES FOR CHRISTMAS

But at the coming of the King of Heaven
All's set at six and seven ;

We wallow in our sin,

Christ cannot find a chamber in the inn.

We entertain Him always like a stranger,

And, as at first, still lodge Him in a manger.

305

Anon.

CCCXXXIX

CEREMONIES FOR CHRISTMAS

COME, bring with a noise,

My merry, merry boys,

The Christmas log to the firing;
While my good dame, she

And drink to your heart's desiring.

With the last year's brand

Light the new block, and
For good success in his spending
On your psaltries play,
That sweet luck may

Come while the log is a-teending.1

Drink now the strong beer,

Cut the white loaf here;
The while the meat is a-shredding
For the rare mince-pie,

And the plumes stand by

To fill the paste that's a-kneading.

CCCXL

WINTER

WHEN icicles hang by the wall,

And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, And Tom bears logs into the hall,

And milk comes frozen home in pail, When blood is nipped, and ways be foul, Then nightly sings the staring owl, To-whit;

To-who, a merry note,

While greasy Joan doth keel1 the pot.

When all around the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,

And Marian's nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl
To-whit;

To-who, a merry note,

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

Shakespeare.

CCCXLI

WINTER'S GAIETY

Now winter nights enlarge

The number of their hours,
And clouds their storms discharge
Upon the airy towers.

1 Skim.

TO HIS DELAYING SOUL

307

Let now the chimneys blaze
And
cups o'erflow with wine;
Let well-tuned words amaze
With harmony divine.

Now yellow waxen lights

Shall wait on honey love,

While youthful revels, masques, and courtly sights

Sleep's leaden spells remove.

This time doth well dispense
With lovers' long discourse;
Much speech hath some defence
Though beauty no remorse.
All do not all things well;
Some measures comely tread,
Some knotted riddles tell,
Some poems smoothly read.

The summer hath his joys,
And winter his delights;

Though love and all his pleasures are but

toys,

They shorten tedious nights.

CCCXLII

T. Campion.

TO HIS DELAYING SOUL

NEW doth the sun appear,

The mountain snows decay,

Crown'd with frail flowers forth comes the baby year.

My soul, time posts away;

And thou yet in that frost
Which flower and fruit hath lost,
As if all here immortal were,

dost stay.

For shame! thy powers awake,

Look to that Heaven which never night makes black, And there at that immortal sun's bright rays,

Deck thee with flowers which fear not rage of days. Drummond of Hawthornden.

CCCXLIII

THE FLOWER

How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean
Are thy returns! Ev'n as the flowers in Spring,
To which, besides their own demean,1
The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring;
Grief melts away

Like snow in May,

As if there were no such cold thing.

Who would have thought my shrivell❜d heart Could have recover'd greenness ? It was gone

Quite under ground; as flowers depart

To see their mother-root, when they have blown,
Where they together

All the hard weather,

Dead to the world, keep house unknown.

1 Demesne, domain; 'which, as coming after a season of frost, have a pleasantness over and above their own proper charm."