Uploaded November 2018 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago

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"To Miss" by Henry Livingston, Jr., the author of "Night Before Christmas. 1789. Read by Byron Nilsson, who portrayed Henry at the "Trial Before Christmas." Music from Richard Sheridan's score of "A Song from the Duenna," a version of which was in Henry Livingston's Music Manuscript.

To Miss -- on the commencement of 1789

Hail! pride of each lass & the wish of each swain
The sweetest & loveliest girl on the plain!
The graces & Muses your footsteps attend--
Each shepherd a lover, each maiden a friend.

Continue dear nymph, as ever you've been
Of beauty and merit's fair empire, the Queen;
Of pain or misfortune the names only know,
And the rose of content in your path ever grow.

Bright rise the young year newly born eighty-nine
On the girl I would give all the globe to call mine:
The bounties of fortune around her be strow'n
For goodness and beauty sweet girl are thy own.