When sleeplessness the Briton claims,
And hits him with her wakeful wallop,
He goes to Gibbon or to James,
Or maybe Trollope.
No paltry limit, such as those
The craving-slumber Yankee curses—
He has a wealth of poppy prose
And opiate verses.
A grain of—ought I mention names
And say whence sleep may be inspired?
Is it the thing to say of James,
"He makes me tired?"
To say "a dose of Phillips, or
A capsule of Sinclair or Brady,
Is just the thing to make me snore?"
Oh, lackadaydee!
Nay! It were churlish to review
And specify by marked attention
Our bedbooks. They are far too nu-
Merous to mention.
A New York Child's Garden of Verses
(With the usual.)
I
In winter I get up at night,
And dress by an electric light.
In summer, autumn, ay, and spring,
I have to do the self-same thing.
I have to go to bed and hear
Pianos pounding in my ear,
And hear the janitor cavort
With garbage cans within the court.