Christmas Is Come

Words: Albert Smith

Source: Henry Vizetelly, Christmas With The Poets (London: David Bogue, 1851).

The old north breeze through the skeleton trees
    Is chanting the year out drearily;
But loud let it blow, for at home we know
    That the dry logs crackle cheerily;
And the frozen ground is in fetters bound;
    But pile up the wood, we can burn it;
For Christmas is come, and in every home
    To summer our hearts can turn it.

        Wassail! wassail!
Here's happiness to all, abroad and at home;
        Wassail! wassail!
Here's happiness to all, for Christmas is come.

And far and near, o'er landscape drear,
    From casements brightly streaming,
With cheerful glow on the fallen snow
    The ruddy light is gleaming;
The wind may shout as it like without,
    It may bluster, but never can harm us;
For a merrier din shall resound within,
    And our Christmas feelings warm us.

        Wassail! wassail!
Here's happiness to all, abroad and at home;
        Wassail! wassail!
Here's happiness to all, for Christmas is come.

The flowers are torpid in their beds,
    Till spring's first sunbeam sleeping;
Not e'en the snowdrops' pointed heads
    Above the earth are peeping;
But groves remain on each frosted pane
    Of feathery trees and bowers;
And fairer far we'll maintain they are
    Than summer's gaudiest flowers.

        Wassail! wassail!
Here's happiness to all, abroad and at home;
        Wassail! wassail!
Here's happiness to all, for Christmas is come.

Let us drink to those eyes we most dearly prize,
    We can show how we love them after;
The fire blaze cleaves to the bright holly leaves,
    And the mistletoe hangs from the rafter;
We care not for fruit, whilst we here can see
    Their scarlet and pearly berries;
For the girls' soft cheeks shall our peaches be,
    And their pouting lips our cherries.

        Wassail! wassail!
Here's happiness to all, abroad and at home;
        Wassail! wassail!
Here's happiness to all, for Christmas is come.

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