Full of drink and full of meat, On our SAVIOUR'S natal day, CHARITY'S perennial treat; Thus I heard a Pauper say:-- "Ought not I to dance and sing Thus supplied with famous cheer? Heigho! I hardly know-- Christmas comes but once a year. "After labor's long turmoil, Sorry fare and frequent fast, Two-and-fifty weeks of toil, Pudding-time is come at last! But are raisins high or low, Flour and suet cheap or dear? Heigho! I hardly know-- Christmas comes but once a year. "Fed upon the coarsest fare Three hundred days and sixty-four, But for _one_ on viands rare, Just as if I wasn't poor! Ought not I to bless my stars, Warden, clerk, and overseer? Heigho! I hardly know-- Christmas comes but once a year. "Treated like a welcome guest, One of Nature's social chain, Seated, tended on, and press'd-- But when shall I be press'd again, Twice to pudding, thrice to beef, A dozen times to ale and beer? Heigho! I hardly know-- Christmas comes but once a year. "Come to-morrow how it will; Diet scant and usage rough, Hunger once has had its fill, Thirst for once has had enough, But shall I ever dine again? Or see another feast appear? Heigho! I only know-- Christmas comes but once a year! "Frozen cares begin to melt, Hopes revive and spirits flow-- Feeling as I have not felt Since a dozen months ago-- Glad enough to sing a song-- To-morrow shall I volunteer? Heigho! I hardly know-- Christmas comes but once a year. "Bright and blessed is the time, Sorrows end and joys begin, While the bells with merry chime Ring the Day of Plenty in! But the happy tide to hail, With a sigh or with or a tear, Heigho! I hardly know-- Christmas comes but once a year!" THE HAUNTED HOUSE[18] [Footnote 18: From the opening number of _Hood's Magazine_, January 1844. Written to accompany an engraving from a painting by Thomas Creswick, bearing the same title.] A ROMANCE. "A jolly place, said he, in days of old, But something ails it now: the spot is curst." WORDSWORTH. PART I. Some dreams we have are nothing else but dreams, Unnatural, and full of contradictions; Yet others of our most romantic schemes Are something more than fictions. It might be only on enchanted ground; It might be merely by a thought's expansion; But, in the spirit or the flesh, I found An old deserted Mansion. A residence for woman, child, and man, A dwelling place,--and yet no habitation; A House,--but under some prodigious ban Of excommunication. Unhinged the iron gates half open hung, Jarr'd by the gusty gales of many winters, That from its crumbled pedestal had flung One marble globe in splinters. No dog was at the threshold, great or small; No pigeon on the roof--no household creature-- No cat demurely dozing on the wall-- Not one domestic feature.