And handsome gifts, and joys untold,
And unaccustomed cheer.

The old ones, palsied, blear, and hoar,
Their breasts in anguish beat--
They've seen him seventy times before,
How well they know the cheat!

They've seen that ghastly pantomime,
They've felt its blighting breath,
They know that rollicking Christmas-time
Meant Cold and Want and Death,--

Starvation--Poor Law Union fare--
And deadly cramps and chills,
And illness--illness everywhere,
And crime, and Christmas bills.

They know Old Christmas well, I ween,
Those men of ripened age;
They've often, often, often seen
That Actor off the stage!

They see in his gay rotundity
A clumsy stuffed-out dress--
They see in the cup he waves on high
A tinselled emptiness.

Those aged men so lean and wan,
They've seen it all before,