The Czar enjoys receiving messages from Mark Spahn, of West Seneca, New York, because they invariably start in medias res.

The Czar is of course much relieved that Mark Spahn, of West Seneca, New York, wrote him about this, rather than GorT. When one speaks to GorT of scanning meters, one usually receives precise laser measurements to a variety of distant objects. The Czar of course understands what Mr. Spahn’s concerns are in real time, given the Czar’s deep knowledge of literature and music.

Of course, when analyzing the meter of songs, one should be looking more toward the beat. Describing the prosody of “I Want a Hippopotamus For Christmas” is forced and complicated: a repeating iamb trochee pentameter combination ending in a bacchius. However, there are so many variations from verse to verse that you hurt yourself trying.

Rossetti had it going on in her early days. Take our word for it.

Easier to describe it in musical beat terms, though, and you have one of the basic reggae rockers beats, even though these tunes were set down well before Burning Spear was around. ♩.♪♩.♪♩.♪♩.♪, and so on, with emphasis on the first two notes of the measure, and eighth notes on the even counts. You hear pieces of it in songs ranging from the “Don’t Get Me Wrong” to “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” to the Doctor Who theme, as it’s a simple syncopated beat. Add a polka beat to it, and you have everything you need for an entire Lawrence Welk special (“A-one and a-two and a-three and a-four!”).

As for the timeliness of songs, well, that’s commercialism for you. But when the Czar says commercialism, he means it: the song’s lyrics were penned for cash by one of the Czar’s favorite poets, Christina Rossetti—who was far more the party animal than is generally portrayed. She wrote it for Christmas, and when turned into a song by no less than Gustav Holst (who also used a variation of the syncopated beat described above in 5/4 time for his classic “Mars, the Bringer of War”) the piece was assumed to be a Christmas tune and nothing more. She was well past the Czar when she wrote that in 1872, of course, and perhaps that’s why she was so bleak about the holidays.

By the way, Rossetti was not the only poet the Czar has known in his many years, by the way. In a stranger phase years later, the Czar used to, shall we say, hang around with Emily Dickinson. She was quite the frisky one and had a crazed fascination for the song “Yellow Rose of Texas,” which she sang to us constantly, and why every single one of her poems can be sung to its tune. She made no secret of this, as you will see by idle Googling, but the odds are good most readers heard this from the Czar, first.

That you can sing it to other tune is a shocking coincidence to be sure. She watched very little television in the morning, if you get our meaning.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.