He doesn't mix rue in his big New Year Bowl,
Whose aim is to cheer up the national soul.
_Sursum corda_! That motto's the best of the bunch;
Make it yours, young New Year, and 'twill keep up your pecker.
Giving way to the Blues, you may take it from _Punch_,
Never helped one in heart or exchequer,
Under the Mistletoe Bough
You cannot do better, I vow,
Than make that same maxim your boyhood's first rule,
As your very first tip in your very first school.
Don't look like a pedagogue, do I, my lad?
And indeed I am not an Orbilius Plagosus,
Like him who made juvenile FLACCUS so sad.
How well the Venusian knows us!
Under the Mistletoe Bough
_He_ never kissed maid, but somehow
Our Dickensish Season he seemed to divine
With his fondness for friendship, and laughter, and wine.
No, boy, I don't greatly believe in the birch,
(Though sometimes my _baton_ must play--on rogues' shoulders.
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