THE MERRIEST CHRISTMAS CAROL.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17223, 14 December 1923, Page 23 (Supplement)

THE MERRIEST CHRISTMAS CAROL.

■ Two Puritan poets at least decked j Christmas with evergreens. Milton j gave us Ins beautiful hyijin of the Na- ; tivity. and George "Wither, in his jnve I J nile days, wrote the merriest Christmas j carol of all. beginning: “ Lo! now is come our jovfullest feast! • Let every man be jolly : Each room with ivy leaves be dressed | And every post with holly. 1

Now all our neighbours’ chimneys smoke. And Christmas blocks are burning. | Their ovens thev with baked meats ! choke. ! And all their spits are turning. 1 Without the door let sorrow lie ; . And if. for cold, it hap to die. We’ll] bury it in a Christmas pie. j And ever more be merry!” Oil© of the subsequent lines in this I fine carol tells ns that “the boys are come to catch the owls.” Hunting j owl.<a and squirrels was an old custom I on Christmas Day in the morning when i the (gentry went hawking and hunting, i Home even says that “ not long ago. in ' the metropolis itself, it was usual t»» , brinrr. up a fat buck to the altar of St j Paul’s with hunters’ horns blowing. 1 etc., in the middle of Divine service.”