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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


FORTY WINKS OF SLEEP by AMOS RUSSEL WELLS

First Line: SLEEPY GRANTHER OFTEN THINKS
Last Line: GRANTHER WOKE. AND THAT'S A FACT!
Subject(s): SLEEP;

Sleepy Granther often thinks
He must take just "forty winks."
Jimmy counted them one day: --

First wink, glasses put away.
Second wink, upon his head
Red bandana is outspread.
Third to tenth winks, by degrees
Granther settles at his ease
In his chair. Eleventh wink,
Granther's eyes begin to blink.
Twelfth, he folds his arms, and then
(Thirteenth) down they go again!
Fourteen to twenty, Jimmy said,
Those were nods of Granther's head.
Twenty-one, his head's at rest,
Finally, upon his breast.
Twenty-two to thirty-nine
(Jimmy's statement, and not mine!)
Those eighteen, no less, no more,
Each one was a separate snore.
Then -- the fortieth wink, exact --
Granther woke. And that's a fact!



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