Drive the cold winter away/In Praise of Christmas [Italian translation]

I

All hail to the days that merit more praise

Than all the rest of the year,

And welcome the nights that double delights

As well for the poor as the peer!

Good fortune attend each merry man’s friend,

That doth but the best that he may;

Forgetting old wrongs, with carols and songs,

To drive the cold winter away.

II

‘Tis ill for a mind to anger inclined

To think of small injuries now;

If wrath be to seek do not lend her thy cheek

Nor let her inhabit thy brow.

Cross out of thy books malevolent looks,

Both beauty and youth’s decay,

And wholly consort with mirth and with sport

To drive the cold winter away.

III

This time of the year is spent in good cheer,

And neighbours together do meet

To sit by the fire, with friendly desire,

Each other in love to greet;

Old grudges forgot are put in the pot,

All sorrows aside they lay;

The old and the young doth carol this song

To drive the cold winter away.

IV

When Christmas’s tide come in like a bride

With holly and ivy clad,

Twelve days in the year much mirth and good cheer

In every household is had;

The country guise is then to devise

Some gambols of Christmas play,

Whereat the young men do best that they can

To drive the cold winter away.