Come Bring the Noise: Poetry for Christmas Eating and Service

We continue today with Robert Herrick and some simple messages of holiday food and hospitality.  It being Christmas Eve, I present a few more bits of festive and welcoming poetry, to wish you the best of the season. 

From “Ceremonies for Christmasse” in Hesperides, this time beating Public Enemy to the punch, Herrick writes of more mince pies and plums in pastry: 

Come bring the noise,

My merry, merry boys, 

The Christmas log to the firing;

While my good dame, she   

Bids ye all be free,   

And drink to your heart's desiring.   

... 

Drink now the strong beer,   

Cut the white loaf here,   

The while the meat is a shredding   

For the rare mince-pie   

And the plums standing by,   

To fill the paste that's a kneeding. 

Another about pie, this time probably a  one large like the Yorkshire Christmas Pie I wrote about earlier.  Herrick calls it a ceremony, so maybe this speaks of a solemn duty; it is certainly a different ritual than leaving milk and cookies for Santa.    

From: "Christmasse-Eve, Another Ceremonie." 

Come, guard this night the Christmas pie,   

That the thief, though ne'er so sly,   

With his flesh-hooks don't come nigh   

To catch it.   

Finally, verses written in praise of fulfilling a duty: to share whatever bounty you have with your fellows.  When you are enjoying your Christmas meals, you must also think of others.  

From "A Panegerick to Sir Lewis Pemberton."

To the worn Threshold, Porch, Hall, Parlour, Kitchin, 

The fat-fed smoking Temple, which in 

The wholesome savour of thy mighty Chines 

Invites to supper him who dines, 

Where laden spits, warped with large Ribs of Beef, 

Not represent, but give relief 

To the lank-Stranger, and the sour Swain; 

Where both may feed, and come again. 

… 

But from thy warm-love-hatching gates each may 

Take friendly morsels, and there stay. 

Let us share what we can this Christmas, be it food or knowledge or whatever.