Wassail Chorus at the Mermaid Tavern
CHORUS: Christmas knows a merry, merry place,
Where he goes with fondest face,
Brightest eye, brightest hair:
Tell the Mermaid where is that one place,
Where?
Raleigh.'Tis by Devon's glorious halls,
Whence, dear Ben, I come again:
Bright of golden roofs and walls--
El Dorado's rare domain--
Seem those halls when sunlight launches
Shafts of gold thro' leafless branches,
Where the winter's feathery mantle blanches
Field and farm and lane.
CHORUS: Christmas knows a merry, merry place...
Drayton. 'Tis where Avon's wood-sprites weave
Through the boughs a lace of rime,
While the bells of Christmas Eve
Fling for Will the Stratford-chime
O'er the river-flags emboss'd
Rich with flowery runes of frost--
O'er the meads where snowy tufts are toss'd--
Strains of olden time.
CHORUS: Christmas knows a merry, merry place...
Shakespeare's Friend. 'Tis, methinks, on any ground
Where our Shakespeare's feet are set.
There smiles Christmas, holly-crown'd
With his blithest coronet:
Friendship's face he loveth well:
'Tis a countenance whose spell
Sheds a balm o'er every mead and dell
Where we used to fret.
CHORUS: Christmas knows a merry, merry place...
Heywood. More than all the pictures, Ben,
Winter weaves by wood or stream,
Christmas loves our London, when
Rise thy clouds of wassail-steam--
Clouds like these, that, curling, take
Forms of faces gone, and wake
Many a lay from lips we loved, and make
London like a dream.
CHORUS: Christmas knows a merry, merry place...
Ben Jonson. Love's old songs shall never die,
Yet the new shall suffer proof:
Love's old drink of Yule brew I
Wassail for new love's behoof.
Drink the drink I brew, and sing
Till the berried branches swing,
Till our song make all the Mermaid ring--
Yea, from rush to roof.
FINALE: Christmas loves this merry, merry place;
Christmas saith with fondest face,
Brightest eye, brightest hair:
'Ben, the drink tastes rare of sack and mace:
Rare!'
Theodore Watts-Dunton (1836-1914)
