Chapter IV: Christmas Carols

"I saw Three Ships" _Old English Carol_ 83

"Lordings, listen to Our Lay" _Earliest Existing Carol_ 84

The Cherry-Tree Carol _Old English Carol_ 86

"In Excelsis Gloria" _From the Harleian MSS._ 87

"God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen" _Old English Carol_ 87

The Golden Carol _Old English Carol_ 89

Caput apri refero resonens laudes domino
_From a Balliol MS. of about 1540_ 90

"Villagers All, this Frosty Tide" _Kenneth Grahame_ 90

Holly Song _William Shakespeare_ 92

"Before the Paling of the Stars" _Christina G. Rossetti_ 92

The Minstrels played their Christmas Tune _William Wordsworth_ 93

A Carol from the Old French _Henry W. Longfellow_ 95

"From Far Away we come to you" _Old English Carol_ 97

A Christmas Carol _James Russell Lowell_ 98

A Christmas Carol for Children _Martin Luther_ 99

V

CHRISTMAS DAY

The Unbroken Song _Henry W. Longfellow_ 104

A Scene of Mediæval Christmas _John Addington Symonds_ 105

Christmas in Dreamthorp _Alexander Smith_ 111

By the Christmas Fire _Hamilton W. Mabie_ 113

Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity _John Milton_ 114

Christmas Church _Washington Irving_ 119

Dolly urges Silas Marner to go to Church _George Eliot_ 124

Yule in the Old Town _Jacob Riis_ 127

The Mahogany Tree _William Makepeace Thackeray_ 132

The Holly and the Ivy _Old English Song_ 134

Ballade of Christmas Ghosts _Andrew Lang_ 135

Christmas Treasures _Eugene Field_ 136

Wassailer's Song _Robert Southwell_ 138

VI

CHRISTMAS HYMNS

A Hymn on the Nativity _Ben Jonson_ 143

While Shepherds Watched _Nahum Tate_ 144

O, Little Town of Bethlehem _Phillips Brooks_ 145

The First, Best Christmas Night _Margaret Deland_ 146

It Came upon the Midnight Clear _Edmund H. Sears_ 147

A Christmas Hymn _Eugene Field_ 149

The Song of the Shepherds _Edwin Markham_ 150

A Christmas Hymn _Richard Watson Gilder_ 152

A Christmas Hymn for Children _Josephine Daskam Bacon_ 153

Slumber-Songs of the Madonna _Alfred Noyes_ 154

VII

CHRISTMAS REVELS

"Make me Merry both More and Less"
_Old Balliol MS. of about 1540_ 164

The Feast of Saint Stephen in Venice _F. Marion Crawford_ 165

The Feast of Fools _William Hone_ 167

The Feast of the Ass _William Hone_ 168

The Revel of Sir Hugonin de Guisay _William S. Walsh_ 170

Revels of the Inns of Court _T. K. Hervey_ 172

King Witlaf's Drinking-Horn _Henry W. Longfellow_ 175

Old Christmastide _Sir Walter Scott_ 176

Christmas Games in "Old Wardle's" Kitchen _Charles Dickens_ 179

A "Mystery" as performed in Mexico _Bayard Taylor_ 183