Volume 100 — "A HAPPY NEW YEAR!"

A Happy New Year? I should think so, my boy, Tossed thus in the arms of your PUNCHY right cheerily, 'Midst all that a youngster should love and enjoy, At least, you're beginning most merrily. Under the Mistletoe Bough You make a good start, anyhow. With a kiss from the lips that can never betray, There's many a girl would be greeted that way! You're welcome, my lad! It is Punch's old style To hail with stout heart all such annual new-comers; In winters of chill discontent he'll still smile, His warmth seems to turn 'em to Summers! Under the Mistletoe Bough All doldrums are bosh and bow-wow. He doesn't mix rue in his big New Year Bowl, Whose aim is to cheer up the national soul. Sursum corda! That motto's the best of the bunch; Make it yours, young New Year, and 'twill keep up your pecker. Giving way to the Blues, you may take it from Punch, Never helped one in heart or exchequer, Under the Mistletoe Bough You cannot do better, I vow, Than make that same maxim your boyhood's first rule, As your very first tip in your very first school. Don't look like a pedagogue, do I, my lad? And indeed I am not an Orbilius Plagosus, Like him who made juvenile FLACCUS so sad. How well the Venusian knows us! Under the Mistletoe Bough He never kissed maid, but somehow Our Dickensish Season he seemed to divine With his fondness for friendship, and laughter, and wine. No, boy, I don't greatly believe in the birch, (Though sometimes my bâton must play—on rogues' shoulders.) Love's rather too apt to be left in the lurch By Orbilian smiters and scolders. Under the Mistletoe Bough A kiss is best treatment, I trow. A salute from the lips of your Punch you'll not spurn, And the young guests around you shall each take a turn. The outlook, my lad, seems a little bit drear, There are clouds and storm-shadows about the horizon, But—well, you're a chubby and rosy Young Year As ever your PUNCHY set eyes on. Under the Mistletoe Bough You look mighty kissable—now. So here goes another, for luck like, my dear, As we wish everybody A Happy New Year!