Our Joyful'st Feast, 2008

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 nipt, and ways be foul, then nightly sings the staring owl

Tu-whoo! Tu-whit! tu-whoo! A merry note! While greasy Joan doth keel 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

Tu-whoo! Tu-whit! tu-whoo! A merry note! While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

William Shakespeare

So, now is come our joyful’st feast, let every man be jolly.

Each room with ivy leaves is drest, and every post with holly.

Though some churls at our mirth repine, Round your foreheads garlands twine,

Drown sorrow in a cup of wine, and let us all be merry.

Now all our neighbours’ chimneys smoke, and Christmas blocks are burning;

Their ovens they with bak’d meats choke, and all their spits are turning.

Without the door let sorrow lie, and if for cold it hap to die,

We’ll bury’t in a Christmas pie, and evermore be merry.

George Wither

Some say that ever ‘gainst that Season comes wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,

This Bird of Dawning singeth all night long: and then, they say, no spirit dare stireth abroad;

The nights are wholesome, then no Planets strike,

No Fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,

So hallow’d and so gracious is the time.

William Shakespeare