Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TO AN OLD FOGY, WHO CONTENDS THAT CHRISTMAS IS WORN OUT, by OWEN SEAMAN Poet's Biography First Line: O frankly bald and obviously stout! Last Line: Outgrown! Subject(s): Christmas; Nativity, The | ||||||||
O frankly bald and obviously stout! And so you find that Christmas as a fête Dispassionately viewed, is getting out Of date. The studied festal air is overdone; The humour of it grows a little thin; You fail, in fact, to gather where the fun Comes in. Visions of very heavy meals arise That tend to make your organism shiver; Roast beef that irks, and pies that agonise The liver; Those pies at which you annually wince, Hearing the tale how happy months will follow Proportioned to the total mass of mince You swallow. Visions of youth whose reverence is scant, Who with the brutal verve of boyhood's prime Insist on being taken to the pant- -omime. Of infants, sitting up extremely late, Who run you on toboggans down the stair; Or make you fetch a rug and simulate A bear. This takes your faultless trousers at the knees, The other hurts them rather more behind; And both effect a fracture in your ease Of mind. My good dyspeptic, this will never do; Your weary withers must be sadly wrung! Yet once I well believe that even you Were young. Time was when you devoured, like other boys, Plum-pudding sequent on a turkey-hen; With cracker-mottos hinting of the joys Of men. Time was when 'mid the maidens you would pull The fiery raisin with profound delight; When sprigs of mistletoe seemed beautiful And right. Old Christmas changes not! Long, long ago He won the treasure of eternal youth; Yours is the dotage -- if you want to know The truth. Come, now, I'll cure your case, and ask no fee: -- Make others' happiness this once your own; All else may pass: that joy can never be Outgrown! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...DIFFERENT VIEWS; A CHRISMAS DUET by JOSEPH ASHBY-STERRY AN UNMERRY CHRISTMAS by AMBROSE BIERCE CHRISTMAS IN CHINATOWN by AUGUST KLEINZAHLER CHRISTMAS TREE by JOHN FREDERICK NIMS ISAIAH'S COAL by JOHN FREDERICK NIMS SOUNDS OF THE RESURRECTED DEAD MAN'S FOOTSTEPS (#3): 1. BEAST, PEACH.. by MARVIN BELL A BALLAD OF A BUN by OWEN SEAMAN |
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