Lyrics In Praise of Christmas - Loreena McKennitt

In Praise of Christmas

All hayle to the days
That merite more praise
Then all the rest of the year;
And welcome the nights,
That double delights
As well for the poor as the peer:
Good fortune attend
Each merry man’s friend
That doth but the best that he may,
Forgetting old wrongs
With Carrols and Songs
To drive the cold winter away.
2. The Court all in state
Now opens her gate
And bids a free welcome to most;
The City likewise
Tho’somewhat precise
Doth willingly part with her cost;
And yet, by report
From City to Court
The Countrey gets the day:
More Liquor is spent,
And better content,
To drive the cold winter away.
3. Thus none will allow
Of solitude now,
But merrily greets the time,
To make it appeare
Of all the whole yeare
That this is accounted the Prime,
December is seene
Apparel’d in greene
And January, fresh as May,
Comes dancing along
With a cup or a Song
To drive the cold winter away.
4. This time of the yeare
Is spent in good cheare,
Kind neighbours together to meet
To sit by the fire,
With friendly desire
Each other in love to greet:
Old grudges forgot
Are put in a pot,
All sorrows aside they lay;
The old and the young
Doth carrol this Song,
To drive the cold winter away.
5. To maske and to mum
Kind neighbours will come
With Wassels of nut-browne Ale,
To drinke and carouse
To all in this house,
As merry as buck in the pale;
Where cake, bread and cheese,
Is brought for your fees
To make you the longer stay;
The fire to warme
Will do you no harme,
To drive the cold winter away.
6. When Christmas tide
Comes in like a Bride,
With Holly and Ivy clad,
Twelve dayes in the yeare
Much mirth and good cheare
In every household is had:
The Countrey guise
Is then to devise
Some gambols of Christmas play;
Whereas the yong men do
Best that they can to
Drive the cold winter away.
7. When white-bearded Frost
Hath threatened his worst,
And fallen from Branch and Bryer,
And time away cals
From husbandry hals,
And from the good countryman’s fire,
Together to go
To Plow and to sow,
To get us both food and array:
And thus with content
The time we have spent
To drive the cold winter away.