A Heavy Fall on Christmas-Day, 1792

Lucilla slapt my hand that day
Of Christmas when she heard me say.
What she declared was like my folly j
"O for that little sprig of holly !

O for that holly sprig to wear
Within my bosom all the year !"
For I had noticed who it was
That shook its rime off on the grass.

I lept to snatch it from the ceiling ;

It hung too high, .so, tottering, reeling,
A headlong fall I could not check,
But fell outright upon her neck.