CHORUS
Christmas knows a merry, merry place,
    Where he goes with fondest face,
      Brightest eye, brightest hair:
Tell the Mermaid where is that one place -- 
              Where?
 
RALEIGH
    ’Tis by Devon’s glorious halls,
      Whence, dear Ben, I come again:
    Bright with golden roofs and walls -- 
      El Dorado’s rare domain -- 
  Seem those halls when sunlight launches
  Shafts of gold through leafless branches,
  When the winter’s feathery mantle blanches
        Field and farm and lane.
 
CHORUS
Christmas knows a merry, merry place,
    Where he goes with fondest face,
      Brightest eye, brightest hair:
Tell the Mermaid where is that one place -- 
              Where?
 
DRAYTON
    ’Tis where Avon’s wood-sprites weave
      Through the boughs a lace of rime,
    While the bells of Christmas Eve
      Fling for Will the Stratford-chime
    O’er the river-flags embossed
    Rich with flowery runes of frost -- 
O’er the meads where snowy tufts are tossed --
      Strains of olden time.
 
CHORUS
Christmas knows a merry, merry place,
    Where he goes with fondest face,
      Brightest eye, brightest hair:
Tell the Mermaid where is that one place
              Where?
 
“MR. W. H.”
    ’Tis, methinks, on any ground
      Where our Shakespeare’s feet are set.
    There smiles Christmas, holly-crowned
      With his blithest coronet.
    Friendship’s face he loveth well:
    ’Tis a countenance whose spell
Sheds a balm o’er every mead and dell
        Where we used to fret.
 
CHORUS
Christmas knows a merry, merry place,
    Where he goes with fondest face,
      Brightest eye, brightest hair:
Tell the Mermaid where is that one place -- 
              Where?
 
HEYWOOD
    More than all the pictures, Ben,
      Winter weaves by wood or stream,
    Christmas loves our London, when
      Rise thy clouds of wassail-steam -- 
    Clouds like these, that, curling, take
    Forms of faces gone, and wake
Many a lay from lips we loved, and make
        London like a dream.
 
CHORUS
Christmas knows a merry, merry place,
    Where he goes with fondest face,
      Brightest eye, brightest hair:
Tell the Mermaid where is that one place -- 
              Where?
 
BEN JONSON
    Love’s old songs shall never die,
      Yet the new shall suffer proof;
    Love’s old drink of Yule brew I,
      Wassail for new love’s behoof:
    Drink the drink I brew, and sing
    Till the berried branches swing,
Till our song make all the Mermaid ring -- 
        Yea, from rush to roof.
 
FINALE
Christmas loves this merry, merry place: -- 
    Christmas saith with fondest face,
      Brightest eye, brightest hair,
“Ben! the drink tastes rare of sack and mace;
              Rare!”