{
 "id": "henry-van-dyke-jr/a-ballad-of-santa-claus",
 "title": "A Ballad of Santa Claus",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": "For the St. Nicholas Society of New York",
 "poet": "Henry van Dyke Jr.",
 "poet_slug": "henry-van-dyke-jr",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Poems of Henry Van Dyke",
 "book_slug": "poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 152,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1920,
  "venue": "The Poems of Henry Van Dyke (1920)",
  "note": "Taken from the 1920 collected edition. That is the printing this text comes from, not the poem's first appearance: the volume gathers work published from 1897 onward, and which earlier book or magazine printed this poem first has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsofhenryvand00vandrich"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/henry-van-dyke-jr_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16229",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16134",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10679",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3525",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9372",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29314",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43094",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsofhenryvand00vandrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/buildersotherpoe00vandrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/toilingoffelixan00vandiala",
   "https://archive.org/details/musicotherpoems0000henr_c7v6",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsnowfirstcol00vanduoft",
   "https://archive.org/details/songsoutofdoors0000vand",
   "https://archive.org/details/thyseaisgreatour00vandiala",
   "https://archive.org/details/chosenpoems0000vand"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 32,
  "n_stanzas": 8,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 78,
  "max_indent": 0
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Among the earliest saints of old, before the first Hegira,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I find the one whose name we hold, St. Nicholas of Myra:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The best-beloved name, I guess, in sacred nomenclature⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The patron-saint of helpfulness, and friendship, and good-nature.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "A bishop and a preacher too, a famous theologian,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He stood against the Arian crew and fought them like a Trojan:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But when a poor man told his need and begged an alms in trouble,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He never asked about his creed, but quickly gave him double.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Three pretty maidens, so they say, were longing to be married;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But they were paupers, lack-a-day, and so the suitors tarried.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "St. Nicholas gave each maid a purse of golden ducats chinking,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And then, for better or for worse, they wedded quick as winking.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Once, as he sailed, a storm arose; wild waves the ship surrounded;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sailors wept and tore their clothes, and shrieked “We’ll all be drownded!”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "St. Nicholas never turned a hair; serenely shone his halo;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He simply said a little prayer, and all the billows lay low.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The wicked keeper of an inn had three small urchins taken,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And cut them up in a pickle-bin, and salted them for bacon.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "St. Nicholas came and picked them out, and put their limbs together⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They lived, they leaped, they gave a shout, “St. Nicholas forever!”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And thus it came to pass, you know, that maids without a nickel,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And sailor-lads when tempest blow, and children in a pickle,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And every man that’s fatherly, and every kindly matron,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In choosing saints would all agree to call St. Nicholas patron.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "He comes again at Christmas-time and stirs us up to giving;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He rings the merry bells that chime good-will to all the living;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He blesses every friendly deed and every free donation;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He sows the secret, golden seed of love through all creation.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Our fathers drank to Santa Claus, the sixth of each December,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And still we keep his feast because his virtues we remember.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Among the saintly ranks he stood, with smiling human features,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And said, “Be good! But not too good to love your fellow-creatures!”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}