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WASSAIL CHORUS AT THE MERMAID TAVERN, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Christmas knows a merry, merry place
Last Line: Rare!'
Alternate Author Name(s): Watts, Theodore
Subject(s): Christmas; Dramatists; Drayton, Michael (1563-1631); Heywood, Thomas (1574-1641); Jonson, Ben (1572-1637); Mermaid Tavern; Plays & Playwrights; Poetry & Poets; Raleigh, Sir Walter (1552-1618); Shakespeare, William (1564-1616); Nativity, The


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, &c.

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, &c.

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, &c.

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, &c.

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!'




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