White Christmas

My folks think I'm a serving maid each time I visit home. They do not dream I apply a trade as old as grace or wrong. For if they found I'd found their name and was not white as snow, I'm sure that they would die of shame.

Please God, they'll never know. I clean the paint from off my face and sober black I dress. Of cochatory I leave no trace to give them vague distress. And though it causes me a pine to play such sorry tricks About my neck I meekly hand a silver crucifix And so with humble step I go, just like a child again

To greet their Christmas candle glow a soul without a stain So well I play my contrite part I make myself believe There's not a stain within my heart on holy Christmas Eve With double natures we are vexed, and what we feel we are, a saint one day, a sinner next, a red light or a star, a prostitute or proselyte, and in each part sincere.

So I become a vestal white one week in every year. For this I see without demerre, from out life's lurid lore, each righteous woman has in her a tincture of the whore, while every harpy of the night as I have learnt too well, holds in her heart a hidden light to ransom her from hell.

So I'll go home and sweep and dust, I'll make the kitchen fire and be a model of daughters just the best they could desire. I'll fondle them and cook their food, and mother dear will say, thank God my darling is as good as when she went away. But after New Year's Day I'll fill my bag and do the