Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, NONSENSE VERSES, by CHARLES LAMB



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

NONSENSE VERSES, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Lazy-bones, lazy-bones, wake up and peep!
Last Line: Remember the loss is her own if she lose it.
Alternate Author Name(s): Elia
Subject(s): Idleness; Nonsense; Laziness; Sloth; Indolence


LAZY-BONES, lazy-bones, wake up and peep!
The cat's in the cupboard, your mother's asleep.
There you sit snoring, forgetting her ills;
Who is to give her her Bolus and Pills?
Twenty fine Angels must come into town,
All for to help you to make your new gown:
Dainty aerial Spinsters and Singers;
Aren't you ashamed to employ such white fingers?
Delicate hands, unaccustom'd to reels,
To set 'em working a poor body's wheels?
Why they came down is to me all a riddle,
And left Hallelujah broke off in the middle:
Jove's Court, and the Presence angelical, cut --
To eke out the work of a lazy young slut.
Angel-duck, Angel-duck, winged and silly,
Pouring a watering-pot over a lily,
Gardener gratuitous, careless of pelf,
Leave her to water her lily herself,
Or to neglect it to death if she chuse it:
Remember the loss is her own if she lose it.





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