114 
LANGUAGE AND 
is little likely to produce any other effect than 
that of irritating a part already too much in¬ 
flamed and susceptible. 
Apart from its beauty, and the pleasurable 
feelings it engenders by decking the wintry 
prospect with its lively-hued foliage and bril¬ 
liant scarlet berries, the holly has other associ- 
tions which render it, in England at least, the 
most beloved of all plants. Long, long may 
Christmas, crowned with this emblem of its 
vitality, knit in bonds of loving brotherhood 
man to fellow-man! 
Eliza Cook carols of the Christmas holly: 
“ The holly ! the holly ! oh, twine it with the bay— 
Come, give the holly a song; 
For it helps to drive stern Winter away, 
With his garments so sombre and long. 
It peeps through the trees with its berries of red. 
And its leaves of burnished green, 
When the flowers and fruits have long been dead, 
And not even the daisy is seen. 
Then sing to the holly, the Christmas holly, 
That hangs over peasant and king: 
While wi laugh and carouse ’neath its glittering 
boughs, ^ 
To the Christmas holly we’ll sing. 
“The gale may whistle, and frost may come 
To fetter the gurgling rill; 
The woods may be bare and the warblers dumb— 
But the holly is beautiful still. 
