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! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE LAKE BOATS by EDGAR LEE MASTERS FIRST BOOK OF AIRS: SONG 7 by THOMAS CAMPION IRELAND (1847) by DENIS FLORENCE MCCARTHY SERENADE by JEAN FRANCOIS VICTOR AICARD THE TWO ARCHERS by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES |