SOURCE URL: https://web.archive.org/web/2024/https://www.henrylivingston.com/xmas/livingstonmoore/moorefromstnicholas.htm   [page path reconstructed from the site's relative links]
DOCUMENT: "From Saint Nicholas" ("What! My sweet little Sis, in bed all alone"), manuscript poem by Clement C. Moore addressed to daughter Charity Elizabeth (b. 1816), Museum of the City of New York 54.331.4 (MCNY dates it ca. 1816-1830).
PROVENANCE OF THIS TEXT: henrylivingston.com transcription.
VERIFICATION STATUS: [S] SECOND-HAND transcription (not checked against the original)
RETRIEVED: 2026-09-14
NOTES: Live site henrylivingston.com fails TLS in this environment; page fetched from the Internet Archive Wayback Machine (2024 capture) and converted HTML->text; site navigation lines removed. The site (Mary S. Van Deusen, Livingston descendant) transcribes manuscripts of the Thomas Collection / New-York Historical Society; transcriptions are SECOND-HAND and have not been checked against the manuscripts.
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Moore's From St. Nicholas
xx
What! My sweet little Sis, in bed all alone;
No light in your room! And your nursy too gone!
And you, like a good child, are quietly lying,
While some naughty ones would be fretting or crying?
Well, for this you must have something pretty, my dear;
And, I hope, will deserve a reward too next year.
But, speaking of crying, I'm sorry to say
Your screeches and screams, so loud ev'ry day,
Were near driving me and my goodies away.
Good children I always give good things in plenty;
How sad to have left your stocking quite empty:
But you are beginning so nicely to spell,
And, in going to bed, behave always so well,
That, although I too oft see the tear in your eye,
I cannot resolve to pass you quite by.
I hope, when I come here again the next year,
I shall not see even the sign of a tear.
And then, if you get back your sweet pleasant looks,
And do as you're bid, I will leave you some books,
Some toys, or perhaps what you still may like better,
And then too may write you a prettier letter.
At present, my dear, I must bid you good bye;
Now, do as you're bid; and, remember, don't cry.
"From Saint Nicholas,"
 original poem by Clement C. Moore,
Museum of the City of New York, Doc #54.331.4.
"Little Sis" was daughter Charity Elizabeth Moore, born 1816.