Suffer thy legs, but not thy tongue to walk: God, the Most Wise, is sparing of His talk.

No news of navies burnt at sea, No noise of late-spawned Tityries, No closet plot or open vent That frights men with a Parliament: No new device or late-found trick, To read by the stars the kingdom’s sick; No gin to catch the State, or wring The free-born nostrils of the king, We send to […]

Let others look for pearl and gold Tissues, or tabbies manifold; One only lock of that sweet hay Whereon the Blessed Baby lay, Or one poor swaddling-clout, shall be The richest New-Year’s gift to me.

Now, now the mirth comes With the cake full of plums, Where bean’s the king of the sport here; Beside, we must know The pea also Must revel as queen in the court here. Begin then to choose, This night, as ye use, Who shall for the present delight here; Be a king by the […]

Down with the rosemary, and so Down with the bays and mistletoe; Down with the holly, ivy, all Wherewith ye dressed the Christmas hall, That so the superstitious find No one last branch there left behind; For, look! how many leaves there be Neglected there, maids, trust to me So many goblins you shall see.

Down with the rosemary and bays, Down with the mistletoe; Instead of holly, now upraise The greener box for show. The holly hitherto did sway; Let box now domineer Until the dancing Easter day Or Easter’s eve appear. Then youthful box, which now hath grace Your houses to renew, Grown old, surrender must his place […]

Go, pretty child, and bear this flower Unto thy little Saviour; And tell Him by that bud now blown, He is a Rose of Sharon known. When thou hast said so, stick it there Upon His bib or stomacher; And tell Him, for good handsel too, That thou hast brought a whistle new, Made of […]

In numbers, and but these few, I sing Thy birth, O Jesu! Thou pretty baby, born here With sup’rabundant scorn here: Who, for Thy princely port here, Hadst for Thy place Of birth a base Out-stable for Thy court here. Instead of neat enclosures Of interwoven osiers, Instead of fragrant posies Of daffodils and roses, […]

Give way, give way, ye gates, and win An easy blessing to your bin And basket, by our entering in. May both with manchet[T] stand replete, Your larders, too, so hung with meat, That though a thousand thousand eat, Yet ere twelve moons shall whirl about Their silvery spheres, there’s none may doubt But more’s […]

Lord, I confess too, when I dine, The pulse is Thine, And all those other bits that be There placed by Thee; The worts, the purslane, and the mess Of water-cress, Which of Thy kindness Thou hast sent; And my content Makes those and my beloved beet To be more sweet. ‘Tis Thou that crown’st […]