PURITAN CAROL

Hutt News, Volume 3, Issue 29, 11 December 1930, Page 24

PURITAN CAROL

< * LET E VEST MAN BE JOLLY. 7'

Two Puritan -poets at.'least decked Christmas with evergreens; Milton, gave us his beautiful hymn of the .Nativity, and George Wither/in his juvenile days wrote the merriest Chiistmas carol of all, beginning: Lo! now is come bur joyfullest feast! Let every man. be jolly ; Each room with ivy leaves be dressed And every post with hojly. y JS o w aU, our neighbours chimneys' smoke And Cliristmas blocks are burning; Their ovens they with baked meats choke ' And. all their spits ..are: turning. "V^ithout the door let sorrow liej| ' . ' And if ,. 4ax cold, it hap tb die, We '11 bury it in a Christmas pie ' And evermore be merry. One of the subsequent lines, io. this fine caTol tells us that "the boys are come to catch the owls." Hunting owls, and squirrels was an old custom on, '.Christmas Day in. the morning when, the gentrj^ \vent hawking and hunting. Hone even says that' f 'not long ago, in the metropolis itself, it was usual.to bring up a fat buck to the altar of St. Paul's :with hunters' horns blowing, etc., in the middle of Divine service.