Hark! the postman! he brings Bills! Christmas Bills!! What a world of torment now my bosom fills! How they trouble, trouble, trouble, All the merry Christmas time, While a woe unfathomable Seems to bubble, bubble, bubble In my mind and mars the merry Christmas chime. For they come, come, come, In a multiplying sum, Admitting no evasion of their ills; Oh the Bills! Bills!! Bills!!! Bills!!!! Bills!!!!! Bills!!!!!! Bills!!!!!!! Oh, the torment and the torture of the Bills! Hang those Bills! Christmas Bills!! For their presence all our Christmas joy dispels; In the silence of the night, How we shiver with affright At the melancholy menace of their tone! And every note that floats From our dry and dusty throats Is a groan; And we wish we were the people Who dwell up in a steeple―― Happy people! All alone! And who, toiling, toiling, toiling For their creditors’ despoiling, Find it easy all cash payments to postpone, And find pleasure in the spoiling, In the spoiling and the moiling, In the spoiling of a bailiff with a stone. They are scarcely man and woman, They are almost superhuman―― They are kings, And like kings can sit and sing, While they fling, fling, fling, Fling rocks upon their duns; While each dun gets up and runs For his pistols and his guns, And he dances and he groans, Keeping time, time, time, In a strange spasmodic rhyme, To the volley of big stones, Of big stones; Keeping time, time, time, In a ghastly sort of rhyme, To the volleying of the stones, Of the stones, stones, stones, To the volley of the jolly big stones. Keeping time, time, time, While he yells, yells, yells, In a wild galvanic rhyme, For the payment of his bills, Of his Bills! Bills!! Bills!!! Bills!!!! Bills!!!!! Bills!!!!!! Bills!!!!!!! For the instant liquidation of his Bills! _Free Press Flashes_, 1883. ――――:o:―――― O! THE HAMMERS. O! the hammers, hammers, hammers, Clanging hammers; How they beat, how they chime, With a joyous music time, Soul-inspiring, never tiring To the ear; O’er the waters of the Tyne Rolls the melody divine Loud and clear; And the toilers, strong and grim, Glory in the sounding hymn, For they know that each blow Keeps the homely hearth aglow; So they hammer, hammer, hammer, And the far-resounding clamour Gives them cheer.