| '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. |
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. |
| 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. |
He was dressed in a lab-coat, Quite ragged and soiled, 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. |
| 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. |
His eys through his goggles I just could't see His hands were all yellow From H-N-0-3 His head was quite bald With a fringe all aroud Like a ring test. for iron, That same shade of brown. |
| The floodlights shone out O'r e 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. |
He puffed a cigar With a smell not at all Unlike the organic lab Right down the hall The smoke billowed forh From his angular face And with Browniam Movement. Enveloped the place. |
| 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. |
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 |
| "Now Nitrite, now Phosphate, Now borate, now Chloride On Citrat.e, 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." |
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. |
| 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. |
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 Holidays to all! May your stockrooms stay neat!" |