The Legend of St. Nicholas (1842)

I'd hoped to include in the book some version of St Nicholas and the pickled boys, but hadn't found any Victorian-era stories or poems in English by Americans.

One old poem/song that has been translated into English from French can be found within a section titled "Chansons Crinoline (About 1830)" within a book of songs sung by Yvette Guilbert. It is a translation of "La Légende de St. Nicholas," and somewhat unusually alters the gender of the children. The translation was by John N. Raphael, himself an author of an intriguing-sounding sci-fi/horror novel Up Above inspired by the weird novel by Jules Renard Le Peril Blue as noted by the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction .

An older French song (ca. 1600s!), translated into English as "Lament of the Children in the Salting Tub" can be found on the website of the St. Nicholas Center.

The Legend of St. Nicholas

Elsie and Esmé and Baby Joan
All toddled out to the fields alone,
All toddled off to a butcher man,
"Butcher, a bed for the night if you can ?"
"Certainly, certainly, in with all three,
I can find beds for the lot of ye.''
Elsie and Esmé and Baby Joan
All toddled off to the fields alone.

Scarce were they all in the butcher's shop
Than into the salting tub, lid a-top,
All three were chopped into pieces small,
Baby Joan, Esmé and Elsie and all.
Elsie and Esmé and Baby Joan
All toddled off to the fields alone.

Seven years later St. Nicholas passed,
Rapped on the butcher man's door at last;
"Butcher man, say, can you put me up ?"
"Aye, that can I, man ! Come in and sup."
Elsie and Esmé and Baby Joan
All toddled off to the fields alone.

"What's there for supper, now, butcher man ?
Say, shall I guess it, if guess it I can ?
Piglings in pickle for seven long years ?
Butcher, but those must be guilty fears !''
Elsie and Esmé and Baby Joan
All toddled off to the fields alone.

For as the saint spoke the words aloud
Off to the fields ran the butcher proud,
"Back with you, man," cried the saint,
"and see, Repent, and God may yet pardon thee.''
Elsie and Esmé and Baby Joan
All toddled off to the fields alone.

Burly St. Nicholas sat beside
The great big tub, and he peeped inside,
Rapped on the lid with his fingers three
Then, "Out with you, children, and chat with me !''
Elsie and Esmé and Baby Joan
All toddled off to the fields alone.

Elsie jumped up and danced round and round ;
Esmé said : "Oh, I have slept so sound,"
Baby Joan climbed on the good saint's knee,
"Angels,'' she lisped, "sang so sweet to me.''
Elsie and Esmé and Baby Joan
All toddled off to the fields alone.
Raphael, John Nathan, trans. Madame Yvette Guilbert's French Songs (Old and New). [NY] Metropolitan Print. Co., 1909?