aid
In the Red Sea.
Mantle it up;
Empty it yet;
Let us forget,
Round the old tree.

Sorrow, begone!
Life and its ills,
Duns and their bills,
Bid we to flee.
Come with the dawn,
Blue-devil sprite,
Leave us to-night
Round the old tree.

_William Makepeace Thackeray._

A CHRISTMAS CEREMONY.

Wassail the trees, that they may bear
You many a plum and many a pear;
For more or less fruits they will bring
As you do give them wassailing.

_Robert Herrick._

WITH CAKES AND ALE.

With cakes and ale, and antic ring
Well tiptoed to the tabor string,
And many a buss below the holly,
And flout at sable melancholy--
So, with a rouse, went Christmassing!

What! are no latter waits to sing?
No clog to blaze? No wit to wing?
Are catches gone, and dimpled Dolly,
With cakes and ale?

Nay, an you will, behold the thing:
The spiced meat, the minstreling!
Undo Misrule, and many a volley
Of losel snatches born of folly--
Bring back the cheer, be Christmas-king,
With cakes and ale!

_H. S. M._

THE MASQUE OF CHRISTMAS.

(AS IT WAS PRESENTED AT COURT, 1616.)

_The Court being seated_,

_Enter_ CHRISTMAS, _with two or three of the guard, attired in round
hose, long stockings, a close doublet, a high-crowned hat, with a
brooch, a long, thin beard, a truncheon, little ruffs, white shoes,
his scarfs and garters tied cross, and his drum beaten before him._

Why, gentlemen, do you know what you do? ha! would you have kept me
out? Christmas, old Christmas, Christmas of London, and Captain
Christmas? Pray you, let me be brought before my lord chamberlain,
I'll not be answered else: _'Tis merry in hall, when beards wag all:_
I have seen the time you have wish'd for me for a merry Christmas; and
now you have me, they would not let me in: _I must come another time!_
a good jest, as if I could come more than once a year! Why, I am no
dangerous person, and so I told my friends of the guard. I am old
Gregory Christmas still, and though I come out of Pope's-head alley,
as good a Protestant as any in my parish. The truth is, I have brought
a Masque here, out o' the city, of my own making, and do present it by
a set of my sons, that come out of the lanes of London, good dancing
boys all. It was intended, I co