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Bring Hither Now the Holly Bough

[Stephen Fawcett, Christopher Edwin Willing]

Lady Maisery and Jimmy Aldridge & Sid Goldsmith sang Bring Hither Now the Holly Bough on their 2019 winter album Awake, Arise. They noted:

In the winter months the evergreens are gathered and brought indoors, conjuring a memory of summer, in defiance of winter’s scarcity.

Words by Stephen Fawcett, first published in Bradford Legends, 1872. Tune by Christopher Edwin Willing.

Lyrics

Lady Maisery and Jimmy Aldridge & Sid Goldsmith sing Bring Hither Now the Holly Bough

Bring hither now the holly bough with berries bright and red
The ivy from the ruined tower where owls shriek o’er the dead
The mistletoe with mystic power and winter’s garland weave
And the Yule logs blaze shall shed its rays to cheer our Christmas Eve

The rack rides fast, deep howls the blast, where is the linnet now?
And where the rose of sunny June? The blossoms of the sloe?
They’re gone but they’ll return again and meantime lest we grieve
We ll warm our hearts with wassail cups and cheer our Christmas Eve

Come Betty dear no voice of love in nature now we hear
But angels near us whisper it through all the varied year
In cold or heat, in gloom or shine, the heart it shall not leave
For as when sultry summer reigns it burns at Christmas Eve

We’ll wake the viol’s merry strings while tempest clouds advance
And while the pane cracks with big hail we tread the careless dance
Thus shall the soul’s warm summer shine ’til changeful earth we leave
And the Yule fire and the wassail cup shall cheer our Christmas Eve