The Lost Chimneys
By Nora May French
A jagged crown they topped the town
They stood in wind and weather--
Stout chimneys Santa clambered down
For years and years together.
In all the havoc April wrought
No shattered flue will hold him,
Who’d given the good old Saint a thought--
Has anybody told him?
He doesn’t read as others do
The daily publications;
He doesn't hear, the whole year through,
The gossip of the nations.
His skillful fingers, busy Saint
Make hobby-horses sleeker,
Daub all the Noah's arks with paint
And give each lamb a squeaker.
He'll come with dolls for Lil and Sue,
A train for little brother
And find of house and hearth and flue
No brick upon another!
Turn over in your Christmas dream
And snore in guilty slumber
While Santa tires his bronco team
To find your change of number!
A light piece about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake,
was published in Sunset magazine, December 1906. It shows Nora May French's
humor and playfulness, a side well known to her family and friends. While this
was not reprinted in the 1910 Poems, her more serious poem on the earthquake,
retitled "San Francisco, New Year’s, 1907," was included.
-- Pamela Herr