2d Attic Meeting
21st December 1814
Oh! St Thomas’s day is most dismal and drear,
Tis the shortest, the darkest, the worst in the year.
What sounds can enliven, what light give a ray,
To pierce the thick gloom of St Thomas the Gray.
Tis the sound of soft numbers, the voice of the lyre
The star’s silver light and the glow-worm’s bright fire.
Tis the flash of the eye, tis the heart’s cheerful glow,
Tis the circlet of laurel that shines on each brow.
Perchance when the sun is more lavish of light,
The star may be paler, the glow-worm less bright
And the laurel now fresh in our evergreen bowers
May wither and droop in the midst of the flowers.
Though gloomy this day yet it shines not in vain
This day wins the sun to our regions again.
The hours and the zephyrs are now on the wing,
To chase the stern winter, and usher the spring.
Then strike louder the lyre, let the light laugh go round
Till sorrow and sickness are lost in the sound,
And friendship, and hope, upon wings of delight
Shall speed the dark hours of St Thomas’s night.
Fitz Almanac