December

BA. I pray thee don thy jerkin of olden time, Bring us good ice, and silver the trees with rime; And I will good cheer, good music and wine bestow, When the Christmas guest comes galoping over the snow.

Thus they in verse alternate sang the year For rabbit shy and listless ewe to hear, Among the grey rocks on the mountain green Beneath the sky in fair and pastoral scene, Like those Sicilian swains, whose doric tongue After two thousand years is ever young,— Sweet the pine’s murmur, and, shepherd, sweet thy pipe,— Or that which gentle Virgil, yet unripe, Of Tityrus sang under the spreading beech And gave to rustic clowns immortal speech, By rocky fountain or on flowery mead Bidding their idle flocks at will to feed, While they, retreated to some bosky glade, Together told their loves, and as they played Sang what sweet thing soe’er the poet feigned: But these were men when good Victoria reigned, Poets themselves, who without shepherd gear Each of his native fancy sang the year.