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Anchored in Guanabara Bay,

rowing ashore most curious

The mouth of the Rio de Janeiro,

home to the Tupi Temiminós

From the cornucopia

of Verzin’s fair utopia

The wealth of God’s grand grace is splayed

for daily needs and worthwhile trade

“Merry Christmas,

ye five who run,

your grand journey

has but begun” –

Ghost of Christmas number one

Conceived by eleven thousand virgins,

three born from this grand island’s core

And with this miraculous emergence,

the Magnus Sinus is no more

Tomorrow was like yesterday:

same sun, same sky, same nebulae

Set in the welkin’s nocturnal gloss:

four gemstones set like our Lord’s cross

“Merry Christmas,

as ye three crews

have penance done

and more yet must do” –

Sprite of Yuletide number two

Barely left the Moluccas

and the Trinidad in dire distress

Thus our figure of good fortune

swells o’er nine months of loneliness

“Merry Christmas,

your lone sails swell

from the Banda Sea

back home through Hell” –

Hear the Ghost of Christmas,

See the Sprite of Yuletide,

Feel the Phantom of the third Noël