{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/an-unmerry-christmas",
 "title": "An Unmerry Christmas",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ambrose Bierce",
 "poet_slug": "ambrose-bierce",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Shapes of Clay",
 "book_slug": "shapes-of-clay",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 52,
 "container": "Shapes of Clay",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1903,
  "venue": "Shapes of Clay (1903)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/shapesofclay00bier"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/ambrose-bierce_poetry",
  "file": "shapes-of-clay.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4793",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12658",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12977",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15599",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof04bierrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof05bierrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof08bierrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/shapesofclay00bier",
   "https://archive.org/details/blackbeetlesinam00bier",
   "https://archive.org/details/literarycalifor05mighgoog",
   "https://archive.org/details/cali07webb"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 52,
  "n_stanzas": 5,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 50,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Christmas, you tell me, comes but once a year.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One place it never comes, and that is here.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Here, in these pages no good wishes spring,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No well-worn greetings tediously ring⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For Christmas greetings are like pots of ore:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The hollower they are they ring the more.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Here shall no holly cast a spiny shade,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor mistletoe my solitude invade,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No trinket-laden vegetable come,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No jorum steam with Sheolate of rum.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No shrilling children shall their voices rear.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hurrah for Christmas without Christmas cheer!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "No presents, if you please⁠—I know too well",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What Herbert Spencer, if he didn’t tell",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(I know not if he did) yet might have told",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of present-giving in the days of old,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When Early Man with gifts propitiated",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The chiefs whom most he doubted, feared and hated,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or tendered them in hope to reap some rude",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Advantage from the taker’s gratitude.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Since thus the Gift its origin derives",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(How much of its first character survives",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You know as well as I) my stocking’s tied,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My pocket buttoned⁠—with my soul inside.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I save my money and I save my pride.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Dinner? Yes; thank you⁠—just a baby’s body",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Done to a nutty brown, and a tear toddy",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To give me appetite; and as to drink,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "About a half a jug of blood, I think,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will do; for still I love the good red wine,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Coagulating well, with wrinkles fine",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fretting the satin surface of its flood.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O tope of kings⁠—divine Falernian⁠—blood!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Duse take the shouting fowls upon the limb,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The kneeling cattle and the rising hymn!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Has not a pagan rights to be regarded⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His heart assaulted and his ear bombarded",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With sentiments and sounds that good old Pan",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Even in his demonium would ban?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "No, friends⁠—no Christmas here, for I have sworn",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To keep my heart hard and my knees unworn.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Enough you have of jester, player, priest:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I as the skeleton attend your feast,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the mad revelry to make a lull",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With shaken finger and with bobbing skull.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "However you my services may flout,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Philosophy disdain and reason doubt,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I mean to hold in customary state,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My dismal revelry and celebrate",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My yearly rite until the crack o’ doom⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ignore the cheerful season’s warmth and bloom",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And cultivate an oasis of gloom.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}