Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, VERSES ON SEEING THE SPEAKER ASLEEP IN HIS CHAIR, by WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

VERSES ON SEEING THE SPEAKER ASLEEP IN HIS CHAIR, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Sleep, mr. Speaker! It's surely fair
Last Line: Sleep, mr. Speaker; sleep, sleep while you may!
Variant Title(s): Stanzas To The Speaker Asleep
Subject(s): Great Britain - Parliament; Politics & Government


SLEEP, Mr. Speaker; it's surely fair
If you don't in your bed, that you should in your chair.
Longer and longer still they grow,
Tory and Radical, Aye and No:
Talking by night, and talking by day;--
Sleep, Mr. Speaker; sleep, sleep while you may!

Sleep, Mr. Speaker; slumber lies
Light and brief on a Speaker's eyes:
Fielden or Finn, in a minute or two,
Some disorderly thing will do;
Riot will chase repose away:--
Sleep, Mr. Speaker; sleep, sleep while you may!

Sleep, Mr. Speaker; Cobbett will soon
Move to abolish the sun and moon;
Hume, no doubt, will be taking the sense
Of the House on a saving of thirteen pence;
Grattan will growl, or Baldwin bray;--
Sleep, Mr. Speaker; sleep, sleep while you may!

Sleep, Mr. Speaker; dream of the time
When loyalty was not quite a crime;
When Grant was a pupil in Canning a school,
When Palmerston fancied Wood a fool;
Lord, how principles pass away!
Sleep, Mr. Speaker; sleep, sleep while you may!

Sleep, Mr. Speaker; sweet to men
Is the sleep that cometh but now and then;
Sweet to the sorrowful, sweet to the ill,
Sweet to the children that work in a mill,
You have more need of sleep than they;--
Sleep, Mr. Speaker; sleep, sleep while you may!





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