Twas The Night Before Lab Reports

Twas the night before lab reports and all through the class
Not a ring stand was stirring, not even a watch glass.
The beakers were hung by the fume hood with care
With hopes that Saint Molecule soon would be there.

The students were cramped in their little old chairs,
While visions of calculators danced in their hairs.
While I and my grade book, humor at best,
Had just settled down to word process a test.

When all of a sudden there arose such a clatter,
I jumped off my lab stool to see what was the matter.
Away to the teacher's room I flew with a flash,
Hitting some glassware, which fell with a crash.

With electromagnetic radiation so bright,
I knew right away everything wasn't right.
But what to my observing eyes should appear,
But a little old chemist who chuckled and leered.

Faster than lightening his atoms they came,
And he whistled and shouted and called them by name:
"Now Fluorine, now Chlorine, now Copper and Argon,
On Carbon, on Bismuth, on Krypton and Boron.
From the top of the lab table to the top of the wall,
Now dash away, flash away, dash away all!"

Then up on the roof he stumbled and fell
And came right through the fume hood, ringing his dismissal bell.
He was dressed in a lab coat that hid his left foot
And his clothes were all covered with sulfur and soot.

A bundle of chemicals he had by his side,
And when he shook his beard, out came polysaccharides.
His eyes how they sparkled, his hands how they shook,
Made me think he was smoking his chemistry book.

He had a round little belly and a broad little face
That changed color when he laughed, like an indicator in base.
His feet were all crooked and flat as a shelf,
And I laughed when I saw him in spite of myself.

He winked with his eye and twisted his head,
Then dropped on my desk a chem book on lead.
He spoke not an equation but went straight to his work,
He filled all the beakers and turned with a jerk.

Then laying a stirring rod aside of his nose,
And shaking a catalyst - up the fume hood he rose.
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a shout,
And away they evaporated, like water no doubt.

But I heard him exclaim as he exploded out of sight,
"A Merry Molecule to all, and to all a Good Night!"