'Twas the Night Before Christmas (1977 TV special) 'Twas the Night Before Christmas (1977 TV special) Twas the Night Before Christmas is a Christmas television special loosely inspired by the 1823 poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" by Clement Clarke Moore. It first aired December 7, 1977 on ABC. Directed by Tim Kiley, it stars Paul Lynde, Anne Meara, Martha Raye, and Alice Ghostley. The story is set on Christmas Eve in a New England town in the late 1890s. The Cosgrove family's home is in an uproar over the holidays. The patriarch, Clark Cosgrove (Paul Lynde) is frazzled by the gift demands of his loud children. His
The Nightingale: A Conversation Poem to his childhood home at Ottery and then went to visit William and Dorothy Wordsworth. It was during this time that Coleridge wrote "Fears in Solitude: Written in April 1798, During the Alarm of an Invasion". The poem was included in a joint publication with William Wordsworth called "Lyrical Ballads", which first appeared in 1798 (see 1798 in poetry). Originally, Coleridge intended to place "Lewti or the Circassian Love-chaunt" in the collection. "The Nightingale" was published in seven other editions but was altered little. The poem begins with Milton's line in "Il Penseroso" about nightingales and then corrects it: The