d

THE WASSAIL.

Like to a solemn sober stream,

Banked all with lilies, and the cream

Of sweetest cowslips filling them.

Then may your plants be pressed with fruit,
Nor bee nor hive you have be mute,

But sweetly sounding like a lute.

Next, may your duck and teeming hen,
Both to the cock's tread say, amen;

And for their two eggs render ten.

Last, may your harrows, shares, and ploughs,
Your stacks, your stocks, your sweetest mows,
All prosper by your virgin-vows.

Alas! we bless, but see none here,
That brings us either ale or beer;
In a dry house all things are near.

Let's leave a longer time to wait,
Where rust and cobwebs bind the gate,
And all live here with needy fate;

Where chimneys do for ever weep,
For want of warmth, and stomachs keep
With noise the servants' eyes from sleep.

It is in vain to sing, or stay

Our free feet here, but we 'll away;
Yet to the Larés this we 'll say:

The time will come when you'll be sad,
And reckon this for fortune bad,

T'have lost the good ye might have had.

T was, and still my care is,
To worship ye, the Larès,
With crowns of greenest parsley,
And garlic chives not scarcely;
For favours here to warm me,
And not by fire to harm me;
For gladding so my hearth here

With inoffensive mirth here;

That while the Wassail bowl here

With North-down ale doth trowl here,

No syllable doth fall here,

To mar the mirth at all here.

For which, O chimney-keepers!

I dare not call ye sweepers,

So long as I am able

To keep a country table,

Great be my fare, or small cheer,

I'll eat and drink up all here.

THE WASSAIL BOWL.

ADDRESSED TO HIS FRIEND JOHN WICKES.

NEXT will I cause my hopeful lad,

If a wild apple can be had,

To crown the hearth;

Larr thus conspiring with our mirth ;

Then to infuse

Our browner ale into the cruise,

A NEW YEAR'S GIFT.

Which sweetly spiced, we'll first carouse Unto the genius of the house;

Then the next health to friends of mine,
Loving the brave Burgundian wine,
High sons of pith,

Whose fortunes I have frolicked with,
Such as could well

Bear up the magic bough and spell,
And dancing 'bout the mystic thyrse,
Give up the just applause to verse.

To those, and then again to thee
We'll drink, my Wickes; until we be
Plump as the cherry,

Though not so fresh, yet full as merry
As the cricket,

The untamed heifer, or the pricket ;*
Until our tongues shall tell our ears,

We're younger by a score of years:

Thus, 'till we see the fire less shine
From th' embers than the kitling's eyne,
We'll still sit up,

Sphering about the Wassail cup

To all those times

Which gave me honour for my rhymes: The coal once spent, we'll then to bed, Far more than night bewearièd.

The buck in his second year.

SENT TO SIR SIMEON STEWARD.

No news of navies burnt at seas;

No news of late-spawned titteries;
No closet-plot, or open vent,

That frights men with a Parliament;
No new device or late-found trick,
To read by th' stars the kingdom's sick;
No gin to catch the state, or wring
The free-born nostrils of the king,

We send to you ;—but here a jolly
Verse, crowned with ivy and with holly,
That tells of winter's tales and mirth,
That milk-maids make about the hearth;
Of Christmas sports, the Wassail bowl,
That's tossed up after Fox-i'th'hole ;*
Of Blind-man's-buff, and of the care
That young men have to shoc the mare ;
Of twelfth-tide cake, of peas and beans,†
Wherewith ye make those merry scenes,
When as ye choose your king and queen,
And cry out "Hey for our town green;"
Of ash-heaps, in the which ye use
Husbands and wives by streaks to choose;
Of crackling laurel, which fore-sounds
A plenteous harvest to your grounds;-
Of these, and such like things, for shift,
We send, instead of new-year's gift.

Read, then, and when your faces shine

With bucksome meat and cap'ring wine,

• A very old game: those who took part in it hopped on one leg, and beat each other with leathern thongs, with a view, we presume, of forcing the raised leg to touch the ground.

+ It was formerly the custom to place a bean and a pea in the Twelfth Cake, and the person who obtained the piece containing the former was chosen king, and the latter, queen, of the evening. See the poem on page 87.

A SPELL.

Remember us in cups full crowned,
And let our city health go round,

Quite through the young maids and the men,
To the ninth number, if not ten,

Until the firèd chestnuts leap

For joy to see the fruits ye reap,
From the plump chalice and the cup
That tempts till it be tossèd up.
Then as ye sit about your embers,
Call not to mind those fled Decembers;
But think on these, that are t' appear,

As daughters to the instant year;
Sit crowned with rose-buds, and carouse,
Till Liber Pater twirls the house
About your ears, and lay upon

The year, your cares, that's fled and gone.
And let the russet swains the plough
And harrow hang up, resting now;

And to the bag-pipe all address,
Till sleep takes place of weariness.

And thus, throughout, with Christmas plays,
Frolic the full twelve holydays.

The following refers to a custom that prevailed in Devonshire, and other cider counties, of throwing the dregs of the Wassail-bowl against the stems of the best bearing fruit trees, on the eve of Twelfth-day. Further particulars respecting this singular practice are given in the next section.

A SPELL.

ASSAIL the trees, that they may bear
You many a plum and many a pear;
For more or less fruit they will bring,

As you do give them wassailing.