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CHRISTMAS CAME TO MISSISSIPPI, by                    
First Line: Fireworks sputtered and crackled and exploded
Last Line: Peace on earth, good will to men.
Subject(s): Christmas; Nativity, The


Fireworks sputtered and crackled and exploded
While a second-hand radio in a drugstore gurgled
Silent Night.

Lounging aristocrats loitering on verandas
Contemptuously contemplate their tenants
And yell at their servants to hurry another drink.
Sweating, hot in their shirt sleeves,
(No snow, sleigh, Santa Claus here)
Pinched faced, ragged clothed, lottery-hungry
Farmers mingle with smartly dressed Rotarians' wives
As they scan their tickets while merchants' prizes,
Five dollars to fifty, are given out.
Disgruntled, a T-model drives back to the hills;
A vision of money and then the same old drab failure.
The sharecropper stops to get a drink on the way home.
Churches are locked. Christ cannot come on Christmas.
He can only come here on Sunday mornings.
Sharecroppers' children expect no presents,
They never have seen a Christmas tree,
Except in a dry-goods store window,
Nor sung Christmas carols,
Except when some ambitious teacher corraled them in chapel.
The plantation owner's daughter is drunk at the dance
While beside a wood-fire a negro figures:
"Maybe next Christmas the boss's adding machine
Won't eat up my year's work.
Fireworks sputter and crackle and explode
While a second-hand radio gurgles
Peace on earth, good will to men.





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