From “The Christmas Fox” in The Christmas Fox and Other Winter Poems by John Bush:
O Father Christmas! You don’t look the same
As the jolly, round fellow who goes by that name.
Where’s your white beard? Your face is so sly.
There’s a point to your ears and a glint in your eye.
And what of your sack? A turkey’s no toy!
Hardly the gift for a girl or a boy.
No black boots. No snowy locks.
You’re not Father Christmas,
You’re O’ Farley the Fox!
But O’ Farley just smiles as on through the snow
He toils and trudges, ever so slow.
His sack bows his back and the strain has him hobbling,
But he smiles for he knows just who’ll do the gobbling.
From “Our Joyful Feast” by George Wither in Treasury of Christmas Ideas, and a Selection of Favorite Stories, Poems, and Carols, published by Meredith Press:
So, now is come our joyful feast,
Let every man be jolly:
Each room with ivy leaves is drest,
And every post with holly.
Though some churls at our mirth repine,
Round your foreheads garlands twine;
Drown sorrow in a cup of wine,
And let us all be merry.
Now all our neighbour’s chimnies smoke,
And Christmas logs are burning;
Their ovens they with baked meats choke,
And all their spits are turning.
Without the door let sorrow lie;
And if for cold it hap to die,
Well bury’t in a Christmas pie,
And evermore be merry.
Now every lad is wondrous trim,
And no man minds his labour;
Our lasses have provided them
A bag-pipe and a tabor;
Young men and maids, and girls and boys,
Give life to one another’s joys;
And you anon shall by their noise
Perceive that they are merry.
Rank misers now do sparing shun;
Their hall of music soundeth;
And dogs thence with whole shoulders run,
So all things there aboundeth.
The country folks themselves advance
For crowdy-mutton’s come out of France;
And Jack shall pipe, and Jill shall dance,
And all the town be merry.…
