"'Twas the Night Before Christmas"


'Twas the night before Christmas,
 The lab was quite still;
Not a Bunsen was burning
 (Nor had they the will).
The test tubes were placed
 In their racks with great care,
In hopes Father Chemistry
 Soon would be there.

The students were sleeping
 So sound in their dorms,
All dreaming of fluids
 And Crystalline forms.
Lab-Aids in their aprons
 And I in my smock.

When outside the lab
 There arose such a roar
I leaped from my stool
 And fell flat on the floor.
Out to the fire escape
 All of us flew.
What was the commotion?
 Not one of us knew.

The flood-lights shone out
 O're the campus so bright
It looked like old Stockholm
 On Nobel Prize Night.
My fume-blinded eyes
 Then viewed (dare I say?)
Eight anions pulling
 A water-trough sleigh.

And holding the bonds
 Tied to each one of them
Was a figure I knew
 As our own Papa Chem.
With speeds in excess
 Of most X-rays they came.
As they Dopplered along
 He called each one by name.

"On Nitrite, On Phosphate,
 On Borate, On Chloride
On Citrate, On Bromate,
 On Sulfite and Oxide.
Forget what you know
 Of that randomness stuff,
Let's go straight to that roof,
 If you've quanta enough."

As fluids Bernoullian
 Behave in a pinch
Those ions said "Alchemist,
 This is a cinch."
So up to the lab-roof
 Those "chargers" they sped
With Pop Chemistry safe
 In his water-trough sled.

Just a microsec later
 Electroscopes showed
Charged particles coming
 To our lab-abode
We raced back inside,
 And what d you think?
Down the fume-hood Pop Chem fell,
 Right into the sink.

He was dressed in a lab-coat,
 Quite ragged and old,
With removable buttons
 (The style, we're told)
A tray-full of beakers
 He clutched to his heart--
And under his arm
 Was an orbital chart.

His eyes through his goggles
 I just couldn't see
His hands were all yellow
 From H-N-O-3
His head was quite bald
 With a fringe all around
Like a ring test for iron,
 That same shade of brown.

He puffed a cigar
 With a smell not at all
Unlike the organic lab
 Rightdown the hall
The smoked billowed forth
 From his angular face
And with Brownian Movement
 Enveloped the place.

He was thin as a match
 And not terribly tall
He wasn't the type
 I'd expected at all
But a look at his clothes,
 In the lab's harsh white light,
With their acid-burn holes--
 He's a chemist all right

He didn't say much
 (He had no time to kill)
And filled all the test tubes
 With nary a spill.
Then placing them back
 On the benches with care
He dashed to the fume-hood
 And rose through the air.

He called to his team
 And his ions took off
And kinetics took care
 Of Pop Chem and his trough,
But I heard him cry out
 As he flew down the street
"Merry Christmas to all!
 May your stockrooms stay neat!"