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William Schwenck Gilbert - A Nightmare
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When you`re lying awake with a dismal headache, and repose is
taboo`d by anxiety,
I conceive you may use any language you choose to indulge in
without impropriety;
For your brain is on fire - the bedclothes conspire of usual
slumber to plunder you:
First your counterpane goes and uncovers your toes, and your sheet
slips demurely from under you;
Then the blanketing tickles - you feel like mixed pickles, so
terribly sharp is the pricking,
And you`re hot, and you`re cross, and you tumble and toss till
there`s nothing `twixt you and the ticking.
Then the bedclothes all creep to the ground in a heap, and you pick
`em all up in a tangle;
Next your pillow resigns and politely declines to remain at its
usual angle!
Well, you get some repose in the form of a doze, with hot eyeballs
and head ever aching,
But your slumbering teems with such horrible dreams that you`d very
much better be waking;
For you dream you are crossing the Channel, and tossing about in a
steamer from Harwich,
Which is something between a large bathing-machine and a very small
second-class carriage;
And you`re giving a treat (penny ice and cold meat) to a party of
friends and relations -
They`re a ravenous horde - and they all came on board at Sloane
Square and South Kensington Stations.
And bound on that journey you find your attorney (who started that
morning from Devon);
He`s a bit undersized, and you don`t feel surprised when he tells
you he`s only eleven.
Well, you`re driving like mad with this singular lad (by the bye
the ship`s now a four-wheeler),
And you`re playing round games, and he calls you bad names when you
tell him that "ties pay the dealer";
But this you can`t stand, so you throw up your hand, and you find
you`re as cold as an icicle,
In your shirt and your socks (the black silk with gold clocks),
crossing Salisbury Plain on a bicycle:
And he and the crew are on bicycles too - which they`ve somehow or
other invested in -
And he`s telling the tars all the particuLARS of a company he`s
interested in -
It`s a scheme of devices, to get at low prices, all goods from
cough mixtures to cables
(Which tickled the sailors) by treating retailers, as though they
were all vegeTAbles -
You get a good spadesman to plant a small tradesman (first take off
his boots with a boot-tree),
And his legs will take root, and his fingers will shoot, and
they`ll blossom and bud like a fruit-tree -
From the greengrocer tree you get grapes and green pea,
cauliflower, pineapple, and cranberries,
While the pastry-cook plant cherry-brandy will grant - apple puffs,
and three-corners, and banberries -
The shares are a penny, and ever so many are taken by ROTHSCHILD
and BARING,
And just as a few are allotted to you, you awake with a shudder
despairing -
You`re a regular wreck, with a crick in your neck, and no wonder
you snore, for your head`s on the floor, and you`ve needles and
pins from your soles to your shins, and your flesh is a-creep, for
your left leg`s asleep, and you`ve cramp in your toes, and a fly on
your nose, and some fluff in your lung, and a feverish tongue, and
a thirst that`s intense, and a general sense that you haven`t been
sleeping in clover;
But the darkness has passed, and it`s daylight at last, and the
night has been long - ditto, ditto my song - and thank goodness
they`re both of them over!
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