Matrimony under the Mistletoe - 1864.

[Currie]

From the Glasgow Herald, Friday, January 8, 1864.

MATRIMONY UNDER THE MISTLETOE.
A Lay of New Year's Eve.

There were lustres on the ceiling, there was music in the hall,
The fine old room was lighted up for the happy New-Year's Ball.
The walls and the chandeliers were hung with sparkling evergreen,
And the single eye-glass of the high-bred ass was fixed in a smile serene.

The young were there, and the beautiful, the gallant and the gay,
And they danced, and they talked and flirted, and they laughed in life's heyday,
And they took no heed of the elderly and the stout around who sat,
Who had waists once slim and ankles trim, alas now gummy and fat!

But some of the stout and elderly looked on with leaden eye,
And compared themselves with the blades and belles as they went bounding by,
Fair faces, fine figures, clean limbs, thought they. How much, when time has fled,
Will their sides be about; will their soles, trod out, like our own abroad be spread?

Among those stout and elderly ones there was one who had sat her down,
A lady who bore a humble name, for her husband's own was Brown.
She smiled on the youth and damsels fair, but cared not them to scan,
For her eyes and thought but one object sought, a rosy short round man.

That short round man was her own John Brown, her true and loyal mate,
Though Brown was grey, and not only that, but bald upon his pate,
But she held him the handsomest man alive in country or in town;
And of all womankind there was none in his mind to compare with Mrs. Brown.

John Brown had finished his gossip and chat, and the night was well nigh o'er,
And eighteen hundred and sixty-three was verging on sixty-four.
Like an old buck gay, he had wandered away from his buxom and blooming old bride,
And now he had done with his jokes and fun he returned him to her side.

He made her a bow, like a cavalier, as he drew on a white kid glove,
Saying, "Will you allow me the pleasure of dancing with you, my love?"
"I am sure I shall be most happy," was the glad wife's prompt reply,
"And a good example, faith and troth, we’ll set the standers by."

Down the middle and up again, down, up again and down,
Hands across, round about, in and out danced Mr. and Mrs. Brown,
And a noble Earl to his Countess said, "In fact they are lovers now;
And by Jove I'm told some years have rolled since they plighted the nuptial vow! "

So they danced and danced till midnight's tongue the hour of twelve had tolled,
As the bells were ringing the New Year in and ringing out the old,
Till they danced beneath the mistletoe bough and mingled nose and chin,
So will you no doubt, dance the old year out, young folks, and the new one in.

From Punch
http://www.archive.org/stream/punch1864 ... earch/chin

Happy New Year,
Alan

[garibaldired]

Delightful, Alan!

Happy New Year.
Best wishes,
Meg

[nelmit]

Another gem Alan.

Happy New Year.

Annette