Now, something completely different from Theodore Watts-Dunton.

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 of golden roofs and walls—

El Dorado’s rare domain—

Seem those halls when sunlight launches

Shafts of gold thro’ leafless branches,

Where the winter’s feathery mantle blanches

Field and farm and lane.

This is the first of the “Wassail Chorus at the Mermaid Tavern,” by Theodore Watts-Dunton. Read on to see how Michael Drayton, Thomas Heywood, Ben Johnson, and a friend of Shakespeare’s answer the tavern crowd’s call to tell of a merry, merry place.