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A CHRISTMAS GREETING.

The pulses again freely play, for

Though faster may fall the snow flakes,
Merry Christmas is coming, and hey for
Waits, turkeys, mince pies, and Twelfth cakes!

A fig for each cynical railer!

We'll keep it up early and late;
I shall have a long bill from my tailor,
But, curse him, the rascal must wait!
Come, what shall it be, pretty lasses,

Hot cockles, pope Joan, blindman's buff?
It matters not how the time passes,
So you do but make racket enough!

Though fashion such sports has exploded,
Its firman ne'er think upon now,
But bring, with its pretty pearls loaded,
The misletoe's mystical bough;
Oh! why should we forfeit such blisses,
To follow the taste of a few;

Though some people may not like kisses,
I honestly own that I do.

Round a good wassail bowl of rich fluids,
Would quench e'en a Tantalus' thirst ;
Libations let's pour to the Druids,

Who gathered the misletoe first!

And next, to the sweet girls who've bless'd it,
Wherever the pretty rogues be,

Who though they must seem to detest it,
Would live and die under the tree.

And surely it won't be deemed treason,
Here met as we are round the hearth,
Of one who ne'er stands upon season,
To add to our comfort or mirth!
To wish him and his every blessing
Man knows in this unstable sphere,
And all the good friends I'm addressing,

An old-fashioned happy New Year!

"THE MAGPIE" TO "THE MAID."

HE magpie begs to tell the maid,
She's set his heart a-throbbing,

For in the picture he's afraid
He sees a little robin(g).

And oh! if so, mistake he can't

The floral indication;

It certainly must be some "plant "

For this old thief's temptation.

Annette! Annette! Annette! For shame!

Have you no human feeling?

Would you of this old bird make game,
Or catch him once more stealing?

You know his pilfering of old

Into much trouble brought you;

And now a little heart of gold

You show him! really, ought you?

Cruel! you know that at my age

I cannot quit my perch,

To steal that heart, and from my cage
Fly with it to the church!

"I would I were a bird," my love,
More fit to go a-wooing;

I'd seek you like "the travelled dove,"
And try my luck at cooing.

But as it is, 'tis much too bad

To tempt me such a "swag" by;
You're only driving raven mad

A poor old chattering magpie !

I'm always dull on Christmas day,
It lets a flood of ills in,

For that's the time those birds of prey
Bring all their horrid bills in!

So pardon if the rhymes I write
Seem rather void of reason;

I cannot take a higher flight,
But in my colours-black and white-
Wish you, with all my heart and might,
The compliments of the season!

BIRD CAGE WALK, ST. JAMES'S,

December 25th, 1867.

A WORD IN SEASON.

CH! Mrs. Belson, ma'am !
You're raly too provoking,
You bother one so-
Nobody can know

If it's arnest you're in or joking.
Sure you're not a believer

In that big deceiver,

That thundering owld thief, Plato,

Who'd have sworn on a crook

If it had suited his book,

That a pig was like a potato!

Och! Mrs. Belson, ma'am !

It's only an evening to be wid you ;

And it's aisy enough

To see the stuff

That you're taking will never agree wid you.

Ye's getting thin,

And go dreaming in

A way no purliteness can gloss over,

And a sin and a shame

'Tis to do that same

For a haythen ould philosopher!