There is a black letter copy of this song in the Pepysian Collection. The first part is found in Durfey's Pills to Purge Melancholy. I have followed the text given in Rimbault's Little Book of Songs and Ballads. AL The Praise of Christmas. FIRST PART. LL hail to the days that merit more praise And welcome the nights that double delights. Good fortune attend each merry man's friend, Let Misery pack, with a whip at his back, In Lethe profound let envy be drown'd, Let Sorrow's expense be banded from hence, We'll spend the long nights in cheerful delights. 'Tis ill for a mind to anger inclined To think of small injuries now; If wrath be to seek do not lend her thy cheek, Cross out of thy books malevolent looks, And wholly consort with mirth and with sport The court in all state now opens her gate Our good gentry there for costs do not spare, The farmers and such think nothing too much, Thus none will allow of solitude now To make it appear of all the whole year And January fresh as May Comes dancing along with a cup and a song To drive the cold winter away. THE SECOND PART. This time of the year is spent in good cheer, Old grudges forgot are put in the pot, All sorrows aside they lay; The old and the young doth carol this song To drive the cold winter away. Sisley and Nanny, more jocund than any, Do carol and sing like birds of the spring, To bring in content, when summer is spent, In pleasant delight and play, With mirth and good cheer to end the whole year, And drive the cold winter away. The shepherd, the swain do highly disdain. To waste out their time in care, And Clim of the Clough hath plenty enough To spend at the night, in joy and delight, For better than lands is the help of his hands To drive the cold winter away. To mask and to mum kind neighbours will come With wassails of nut-brown ale, To drink and carouse to all in the house As merry as bucks in the dale; Where cake, bread, and cheese is brought for your fees To make you the longer stay; At the fire to warm 'twill do you no harm, To drive the cold winter away. When Christmas's tide comes in like a bride With holly and ivy clad, Twelve days in the year much mirth and good cheer In every household is had; ་་་་་་་ཀླ The country guise is then to devise Some gambols of Christmas play, Whereat the young men do best that they can When white-bearded frost hath threatened his worst, And fallen from branch and briar, Then time away calls from husbandry halls And from the good countryman's fire, And thus with content the time we have spent L |