CHRISTMAS.

HENCE, Summer, indolently laid
To sleep beneath the cooling shade!
Panting quick with sultry heat,

Thirst and faint Fatigue retreat!

Come, CHRISTMAS! father Thou of Mirth,

Patron of the festive hearth,

Around whose social evʼning flame

The jovial song, the winter game,

The chase renew'd in merry tale,

The season's carols never fail.
Who, tho' Winter chill the skies,
Canst catch the glow of exercise,
Following swift the foot-ball's course;
Or with unresisted force,

Where Frost arrests the harden'd tide,
Shooting athwart the rapid slide.

Who, ere the misty morn is grey,
To some high covert hark'st away;
While Sport, on lofty courser borne,
In concert winds his echoing horn
With the deeply-thund'ring hounds,
Whose clangour wild, and joyful sounds,
While echo swells the doubling cry,
Shake the woods with harmony.

How does my eager bosom glow
To give the well known tally-ho!
Or shew, with cap inverted, where
Stole away the cautious hare!

Or, if the blast of Winter keen
Spangles o'er the silvery green,
Booted high thou lov'st to tread,
Marking, thro' the sedgy mead,
Where the creeping moor-hen lies,
Or snipes with sudden twittering rise:
Or joy'st the early walk to take

Where, thro' the pheasant-haunted brake

Oft as the well-aim'd gun resounds,
The eager-dashing spaniel bounds.

For thee of buck my breeches tight, Clanging whip, and rowels bright, The hunter's cap my brows to guard, And suit of sportive green 's prepar'd: For, since these delights are thine, CHRISTMAS, with thy bands I join.

FREE IMITATION OF A LATIN ODE,

BY WALTER DE MAPES,

ARCHDEACON OF OXFORD IN THE ELEVENTH CENTURY.

I.

I'LL in a tavern end my days

'Midst boon companions merry,

Place at my lips a lusty flask

Replete with sparkling sherry,

That angels hov'ring round may cry,

When I lie dead as door-nail :

"Rise, genial Deacon, rise and drink

"Of the well of Life Eternal."

CANTILENA.

I.

MIHI est propositum in tabernâ mori,

Vinum sit appositum morientis ori,

Ut dicant, cùm venerint Angelorum chori:
"Deus sit propitius huic Potatori!”

II.

"Tis wine the fading lamp of life Renews with flame celestial,

And elevates th' enraptur'd sense

Above this globe terrestrial:

Be mine the grape's pure juice, unmix'd

With any base ingredient!

Water to heretics I leave,

Sound churchmen have no need on't.

CANTILENA.

II.

Poculis accenditur animi lucerna ;
Cor imbutum Nectare volat ad superna;

Mihi sapit dulcius vinum in tabernâ

Quàm quod aquâ miscuit præsulis Pincerna.