Page 51 - Poetry-Country

‘T was Christmas broached the mightiest ale;
‘T was Christmas told the merriest tale;
A Christmas gambol oft could cheer
The poor man’s heart through half the year.

— Sir Walter Scott (reprinted in Crown Jewels, 1887)

Old Christmas

One day old Time limped up his corridor
To see how wagged the world; the draught was cold,
It made him shiver with an ague sore,
And grumble something sour ‘bout getting old.
His wings were all moth-eaten and decayed,
His sickle to a rusted crutch was turned,
His blear eyes blinked like glow-worms in the shade;
Forbidding looked he, as a task unlearned.
Well, the old man grew spiteful when he found
Himself so out of date; with shouldered crutch
He played sad havoc ‘midst the pictures round—
Crowns, customs, cities crumbled ‘neath his touch.

At last he saw one where fat, rosy winter
Laughed with the children round the Christmas fire:
“He mocks me, but I will not leave a splinter
Of the whole thing,” Time muttered in his ire.

He lifted high his devastating stick—
But Cupid, passing, saw his fell intent,
And dropped upon the other end so quick,
Like a hot coal, from out his hand it went.

~ 49 ~