THE SWELL'S DREAM; OR, WHAT HIS HEIR WOULD LIKE TO BRING ABOUT.
(Dedicated by a Shortman to a Longfellow.)
I.
BESIDE an untouched ice he lay,
An eighteenpenny cigar in his hand,
He shook his hair with an angry air
At the sound of a distant band.
Then he dreamt in the mist and shadow of sleep
He was a beggar in the Strand.
II.
Wide through his frock-coat's gaping seams
His fancy shirting showed;
He had no gloves, no crutchy cane,
No nosegay a la mode;
And he saw a man, with a tinkling pan,
Crying m-u-lk all down the road!
III.
He felt quite sore, and very lean,
His face was sadly tanned;
His bones stuck out on both his cheeks,
And he could hardly stand.
A tear dropped from the sleeper's lids,
His Havanna from his hand.
IV.
And then the dismal vision showed
The way in which he sank;
From golden chains, to aches and pains,
With no balance at the bank.
For this woe he could feel, and it caused him to reel,
He had but himself to thank.
V.
From a popular man, dubbed a wit and a wag,
To a pauper without a sous;
From morn till night, like an unhappy wight,
Cut or shunned by all he knew.
And this was his fate, by stopping up late,
And losing his money at "loo!"
VI.
How he had wasted his time and his tin
By keeping and driving a team.
The care and the cash he had spent on his weeds,
All this he saw in his dream.
And, as his thoughts sped, the blood in his head
Curdled up like so much cream.
VII.
He thought of the good he might have done
For love and charity;
And with anguish bowed, he cried out aloud
A word that began with a "d!"
He started and woke—and exceedingly riled,
Rang the bell for a Soda and B.
VIII.
How did he feel as he took out his watch,
And consulted the time of day?
Had he learnt a lesson from the Land of Sleep?
I hope for my sake he may!
And I think the moral did reach its goal,
For he's got quite stingy they say.
From Cribblings from the Poets (Jones and Piggott, Cambridge, 1883).