So, we'll go no more a roving the latter part of it, and sitting up late o' nights--had knocked me up a little. But it is over--and it is now Lent, with all its abstinence and sacred music... Though I did not dissipate much upon the whole, yet I find 'the sword wearing out the scabbard,' though I have but just turned the corner of twenty nine." The poem seems to have been suggested in part by the refrain of a Scottish song known as "The Jolly Beggar." The Jolly Beggar was published in Herd's "Scots Songs" in 1776, 41 years before Byron's letter, and goes partially
We Wish You a Merry Christmas until we've got some We won't go until we've got some So bring some out here REFRAIN </poem> <poem> We wish you a Merry Christmas We wish you a Merry Christmas We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. REFRAIN Good tidings we bring for you and your kin, Good tidings for Christmas and a Happy New Year. Oh bring us some figgy pudding (x3) and bring it right here. REFRAIN And we won't go until we've got some (x3) so bring some out here. REFRAIN It's a season for music (x3) and a time of good