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Show Visit from St Nicholas' written as Christmas gift by Marjorie Miller "Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night." These heart-warming and familiar words, so dear to all, complete Clement Clarke Moore's beloved poem, A Visit from St. Nicholas. Dr. Moore, a classical scholar and part-time poet, wrote his immortal im-mortal and whimsical poem on a cold Christmas Eve in 1822, as a present he had promised to his children. Clement Clarke Moore is best remembered for having created the now popular image of Santa Claus, that happy, portly, white bearded figure, dressed in fur, smoking a pipe, and carrying a bulging sack of toys over his shoulder. It is thought that an old Dutch handyman who drove Dr. Moore 's sleigh the night the poem was written was the model for the cherubic Santa figure. Imagine how delighted the Moore children must have been with this colorful tale. How captivated, capti-vated, as their father read, "Now Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen! On! Comet, on! Cupid, on! Donder and Blitzen." The young family memorized the poem they loved so, although Dr. Moore thought little of it and relegated it to a desk drawer. Somedme after the holiday, a , family acquaintance, intrigued with the fascinating and spellbinding spell-binding tale, sent a copy to her local newspaper, where it was reprinted. re-printed. Unfortunately, she forgot to say who had written the delightful de-lightful poem, and for some years it was reprinted "anonymously" in other papers and magazines. Later, in the 1860's, Thomas Nast, an American polidcal cartoonist, car-toonist, created the rotund, kindly Santa we know, in his fur-trimmed fur-trimmed red suit. iiWi""lt iliiiriiiin 111111 m 1 annum nirni i mir Although better known for his political cartoons, Thomas Nast ; also drew this charming scene of Santa Claus waiting for the , children to go to bed on Christmas eve. The drawing appeared in Harper's Weekly, January 3, 1874. Courtesy of the New York Historical Society, New York City. j A collecdon of verse printed in 1837, called The New York Book of Poetry, carried Dr. Moore's poem with his name. And it was also included in a volume of Dr. Moore's poems, printed in 1844. Although he did not consider A Visit from St. Nicholas a significant signifi-cant poem, it eclipsed all his other writings on the Bible and classical literature. Clement Moore never received a single penny in royalties from his poem, although it has been reprinted coundess thousands of 1 dmes. Almost every American ; child, and millions of other children chil-dren all over the world, have been J delighted by this endearing classic. clas-sic. There is no estimating how j many people have read or heard it in the dozens of languages in which it has appeared. ! Dr. Clement Clarke Moore has been likened to the kindly, humorous figure he gave to the world, a man who brought joy to others and whose own reward was the happiness he left as his legacy. |
