In Other Words/Christmas Comes but Once a Year

by Franklin P. Adams

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“Christmas Comes but Once a Year”

(As Wordsworth might simply have done it.)

I met a little village child,
 A simple one and poor
As ever crossed the heath at night.
 Or went across the moor.

“What do you out so late abroad?”
 I asked that simple child.
She simply looked at me and said,
 The while she simply smiled:

“The seven of us simply live
 A little way from here;
And oh, to-day is Christmas day—
 It comes but once a year.”

In many a land and many a clime
 Have I had cause to be,
But never since then have I seen
 Such sweet simplicity.

(As Austin Dobson might rondeau it, “To a Poet Bewailing the Paucity of Christmas.”)

“Christmas comes but once a year?”
Be it so! Why interfere?
 Melt but once the silver snows,
 Blossoms only once the rose—
Does it make the rose less dear?

Nay, my silly sonneteer,
Other days may disappear,
 New Year’s leaves and May-day goes—
Christmas comes!

Draws the day of Noël near,
Light the log and mix the cheer!
 Vanish, Care! and perish Prose!
 ’Tis the season of rondeaux
Intricately Gallic. . . . Here
Christmas comes!

(Being an attempt to parody an eminent young librettist, author, manager and actor.)

Now, everybody knows that I’m a patriotic guy—
(By the dawn’s early light)
My birthday and the country’s is the 4th day of July.
(Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! The boys are marching.)
But though I’d like to sing a song about Abe Lincoln’s birthday,
(Just before the battle, mother)
I think that, on the level, Christmas ought to have the first say.

CHORUS

It’s a grand old institution,
(In Dixie land I’ll take my stand)
 In the Western Hemisphere,
(Hail Columbia! Happy land!)
Then give three cheers for Christmas,
(And a tiger)
 It comes but once a year.

You may have your Decoration Day, your New Year’s and the rest,
(O Columbia! the gem of the ocean!)
But Christmas Eve on Broadway is the time that suits me best.
(Maryland! My Maryland!)
’Tis there you find your dear old pals, the best in all the world;
(Way down upon the Swanee River!)
Tis there you find the best of all the fellows and the girls.

CHORUS

It’s a grand old institution, etc.

(Somewhat in the Kipling manner.)

Now these are the things that Christmas brings, the things of the tide of Yule,
And this is the way of that dreadsome day, as it goes by the swerveless rule:

Days and weeks the lady seeks to purchase of a trinket,
 (Shop! shop! shop! O the terror of the trade!)
Buyin’ of a gift o’ love? Well, ye better think it—
 Aimin’ at the sergeant who is passin’ on parade.
      And it’s shop, shop, shop!
      Till the sweat begins to drop!
Never was a present yet worth a charge o’ hop.

Sergeant Burr has bought for her a bally di’mond jewel
 (Shop! shop! shop! O the terror of the trade!)
Never met a orfcer yet as wasn’t cold an’ cruel
 (O the wily sergeant, and ah, the willing maid!)
      And it’s shop! shop! shop!
      Till the sweat begins to drop—
 Never was a present yet worth a charge o’ hop!

Now those are the things that Christmas brings, the things of the tide of Yule,
And that is the way of that dreadsome day, as it goes by the swerveless rule!

(In Hood’s worst manner.)

JOCOSE JOE STENCIL

A Bathetic Ballad

Joe Stencil was a nice young man,
 And eke a shipping clerk,
Although he’d often work to love,
 He never loved to work.

One day he met with Minnie Brown,
 And fain would be her lover,
But Minnie overlooked him quite,
 Although he looked her over.

“O Minnie Brown! O Minnie Brown!
 Why think you not of me?”
“The more I think of you,” she said,
 “The less I think,” said she.

“O Minnie Brown! O Minnie Brown!
 I think it would be proper,
Although I but a shipper am,
 If I should be a shopper.

“Be not so adamant,” said Joe,
 “I aim not to deceive.
I’ll be your Christmas Adam, if
 You’ll be my Christmas Eve.”

Joe Stencil then began to sing
 Of all the joy he’d bring her:
“Ah, Minnie, when I sing to you,
 I am a minnesinger.’

“O Joseph, cut the comedy,
 You’ve had an overdose;
Although I like to hear you, Joe
 I like you less jocose.”

“O Min, I know the jokes are not
 Particularly good,
But they are as jest as good as some
 You’ll find in Thomas Hood.

“Only upon the Christmas day
 Shall I my puns rehearse,
For though they are quite prosy, yet
 You know they might be verse.”

And so ’tis but a single day
 This double pair most fear,
And they rejoice that Christmas day
 Comes only once a year.

(As Lord Byron might sing it, in a minor.)

Farewell! And if within that breast
 Affection’s spark shall smolder still,
Fan it to flame and quench the rest,
 And let the world say what it will.

Farewell! Farewell! O wintry word
 That chills and numbs this aching heart —
This heart that hath so often erred,
 But softens when ’tis time to part.

Farewell! Farewell! Farewell! And though
 This heart shall be an empty thing,
Thou canst not fathom half the woe
 That lies within it when I sing.

Farewell! Farewell! Farewell! Oh, dear,
 Of all that dearest is to me,
Though Christmas comes but once a year,
 My farewells come more frequently.

(Being an attempt to get away with Thomas Moore’s manner.)

Oh, sweet is the scent of the rose in the morning,
 And fresh is the flower besprinkled with dew,
But sweeter and fresher thy face is, mavourneen,
 As pure as the lily and whiter of hue.

Oh, silk was the shawl that I last saw her wearing,
 And sad are the moorlands and sad are the leas.
And sadder the songs that they sing about Erin,
 And saddest the way that they drop off the g’s.

Oh, red is the berry that grows on the holly,
 And tender the mem’ry of vanished things dear,
And this is the thought of my sweet melancholy,
 That Christmas comes once and but once in the year.

(In one of Frank L. Stanton’s manners.)

I
Chris’mus am a-comin’,
 Cahve de possum meat!
My! dem sweet potatoes
 Am mighty good to eat.

II
Chris’mus am a-comin’,
 Down in Geo’gy lan’;
Chris’mus am a-comin’,
 Don’ yo un’er’stan’?

III
Chris’mus am a-comin’,
 Hear, believers, hear,
Chris’mus come to Geo’gy
 Only wunst a year.

(Stanzas IV to CLI supplied on demand.)

(As Martin Farquhar Tupper might have obscured it.)

Now this is an indisputable fact,
 And that is one which no one can dispute;
As true as that a diplomat needs tact,
 As true as that an apple is a fruit,
None can deny what I have said; What I
Have said, I say, nobody can deny.

And if none can gainsay what I have said,
 Then that which I have said none can gainsay,
A man who’s passed away is known as dead;
 Dead is a person who has passed away.
But this is not what I began to sing;
What I began to say is not this thing.

Now this is what I hold as solemn truth,
 And solemn truth is that which is not gay.
A man of sixty years is not a youth,
 Nor are black tresses those completely gray.
But this is clear as glass, as glass is clear:
The day of Christmas comes but once a year.

(As Swinburne might treat it.)

As a day that dawns when the dark is dimmer,
 Sodden and sad as a sunless sea,
Gray and green as a glaring glimmer,
 Burnished and bright in its gilded glee.
Gone the guerdon and gone the glories,
 Dead or ever the day was born—
Dead as a devilish dove, Dolores,
Mother of misery, made to mourn!

Thou hast bared thy breast to the boreal breezes
 Sibilant, stark, as the soul of sin,
Chill and cheap as a Cheshire cheese is,
 Gloriously glad as an elinorglyn!
Winds that whimper and winds that whistle
 Faster far than the phantom of fear.
O Dolores, the toe of mistle!
 Christmas comes! and but once a year.