This version ran in the Arizona Daily Star Saturday, Dec. 22, 1912:
The Night Before Christmas
By Wilbur D. Nesbit
“ ’Tis the night before Christmas” —
I whisper the rhyme
And wander in fancy
To “once on a time.”
I see the big fireplace,
The girls and the boys,
The long, heaped-up stockings,
The drums and the toys.
“ ’Tis the night before Christmas” —
So old, and so new!
With all of its dreamings
So good and so true.
I see all the faces
Forgotten so long,
And out of the twilight
There murmurs a song.
“ ’Tis the night before Christmas” —
And here, by my grate,
The past rises, glowing;
The years lose their weight.
The boy-days come trooping
At memory’s call,
And gleam in the embers
That flicker and fall.
“ ’Tis the night before Christmas” —
Ah, could I but clutch
The gold of my fancies!
’Twould go at my touch!
The shouts and the laughter
Now sweet to my ear
Would shrink to a silence
Too deep and too drear.
“ ’Tis the night before Christmas” —
Remembrances stir
As sweet as the cherished
Frankincense and myrrh.
And, hark! As the visions
Grow dim to the sight,
There comes: “Merry Christmas!
And, boy-days, good night!”
