Lived on one's back, In the long hours of repose, Life is a practical nightmare -- Hideous asleep or awake. Shoulders and loins Ache - - - ! Ache, and the mattress, Run into boulders and hummocks, Glows like a kiln, while the bedclothes -- Tumbling, importunate, daft -- Rumble and roll, and the gas, Screwed to its lowermost, An inevitable atom of light, Haunts, and a stertorous sleeper Snores me to hate and despair. All the old time Surges malignant before me; Old voices, old kisses, old songs Blossom derisive about me; While the new days Pass me in endless procession: A pageant of shadows Silently, leeringly wending On . . . and still on . . . still on! Far in the stillness a cat Languishes loudly. A cinder Falls, and the shadows Lurch to the leap of the flame. The next man to me Turns with a moan; and the snorer, The drug like a rope at his throat, Gasps, gurgles, snorts himself free, as the night-nurse, Noiseless and strange, Her bull's eye half-lanterned in apron (Whispering me, 'Are ye no sleepin' yet?'), Passes, list-slippered and peering, Round . . . and is gone. Sleep comes at last -- Sleep full of dreams and misgivings -- Broken with brutal and sordid Voices and sounds that impose upon me, Ere I can wake to it, The unnatural, intolerable day. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...IDYLLS OF THE KING: GERAINT AND ENID by ALFRED TENNYSON OMNES EODEM COGIMUR by AMMIANUS THE THINKER'S VISION by WILLIAM ROSE BENET THE CLIFF-TOP by ROBERT SEYMOUR BRIDGES TO MARY RUSSELL MITFORD, IN HER GARDEN by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING THE WANDERER: 6. PALINGENSIS: EUTHANASIA (WRITTEN AFTER LONG ILLNESS) by EDWARD ROBERT BULWER-LYTTON |