| Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922. | | | | The Holly Bough | | By Charles Mackay (1814–1889) |
| | | YE who have scorn’d each other, | |
| Or injured friend or brother, | |
| In this fast-fading year; | |
| Ye who, by word or deed, | |
| Have made a kind heart bleed, | 5 |
| Come gather here. | |
| |
| Let sinn’d-against and sinning | |
| Forget their strife’s beginning, | |
| And join in friendship now, | |
| Be links no longer broken, | 10 |
| Be sweet forgiveness spoken | |
| Under the holly bough. | |
| |
| Ye who have loved each other, | |
| Sister and friend and brother, | |
| In this fast-fading year; | 15 |
| Mother and sire and child, | |
| Young man and maiden mild, | |
| Come gather here; | |
| |
| And let your hearts grow fonder, | |
| As memory shall ponder | 20 |
| Each past unbroken vow. | |
| Old love and younger wooing | |
| Are sweet in the renewing, | |
| Under the holly bough. | |
| |
| Ye who have nourish’d sadness, | 25 |
| Estranged from hope and gladness, | |
| In this fast-fading year; | |
| Ye with o’erburthen’d mind, | |
| Made aliens from your kind, | |
| Come gather here. | 30 |
| |
| Let not the useless sorrow | |
| Pursue you night and morrow; | |
| If e’er you hoped, hope now— | |
| Take heart, uncloud your faces, | |
| And join in our embraces | 35 |
| Under the holly bough. | | | | |
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