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,

Come gather here.

Let sinn’d-against and sinning

Forget their strife’s beginning,

And join in friendship now,

Be links no longer broken,

Be sweet forgiveness spoken

Under the holly bough.

Ye who have loved each other,

Sister and friend and brother,

In this fast-fading year;

Mother and sire and child,

Young man and maiden mild,

Come gather here;

And let your hearts grow fonder,

As memory shall ponder

Each past unbroken vow.

Old love and younger wooing

Are sweet in the renewing,

Under the holly bough.

Ye who have nourish’d sadness,

Estranged from hope and gladness,

In this fast-fading year;

Ye with o’erburthen’d mind,

Made aliens from your kind,

Come gather here.

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

Under the holly bough.