Go your way from Amsterdam;
From Amsterdam to Spain,
From Spain to Orange,
And bring us little children toys.
Saint Nicholas, my dear good friend,
To praise you ever is my end.
If you will presents to me give
I’ll serve you till I cease to live.
It was about the middle of the nineteenth century that the funny men of America took the Saint under their special patronage. In Holland he had been austere and dignified, as became a bishop and a saint. In America he developed into the fat, jolly, pot-bellied old roysterer whom we all know and love and who reminds us at so many points of the fun loving Silenus of Pagan times.
Undoubtedly it was the American Clement C. Moore who immortalized the figure and decided the model which all succeeding poets and artists have ever followed. This is how Santa Klaus is described in Mr. Moore’s very popular poem entitled “A Visit from Santa Klaus”: