Noël! Noël! Noël! Noël!
A Catholic tale have I to tell!
And a Christian song have I to sing
While all the bells in Arundel ring.
I pray good beef and I pray
good beer
This holy night of all the year,
But I pray detestable drink for them
That give no honour to Bethlehem.
May all good fellows that
here agree
Drink Audit Ale in heaven with me
And may all my enemies go to hell!
Noël! Noël! Noël! Noël!
May all my enemies go to hell!
Noël! Noël!
Grizzlebeard. "Rank
blasphemy I said, and heresy, which is worse. For at Christmas we should in
particular forgive our enemies."
The Sailor. "I do. This song is about those that do not
forgive me."
The Poet. "And it is bad verse, like all the
rest."
The Sailor. "Go drown yourself in milk and water; it is
great, hefty howl-verse, as strong and meaty as that other of mine was lovely
and be-winged."
Grizzlebeard. "What neither the Poet nor you seem to
know, Sailor, is that the quarrels of versifiers are tedious to stand-by, so
let us go into the Cricketers' Arms and eat as you say, in God's name, and
occupy ourselves with something pleasanter than the disputed lyric."
~Hilaire Belloc: Excerpt from The Four Men: A Farrago
The world is changing very
fast, and neither exactly for the better or the worse, but for division. Our
civilization is splitting more and more into two camps, and what was common to
the whole of it is becoming restricted to the Christian, and soon will be
restricted to the Catholic half. – The Remaining Christmas, 1928
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