Impetuously I sprang from bed, Long before lunch was up, That I might drain the dizzy dew From day's first golden cup.
In swift devouring ecstacy Each toil in turn was done; I had done lying on the lawn Three minutes after one.
For me, as Mr. Wordsworth says, The duties shine like stars; I formed my uncle's character, Decreasing his cigars.
But could my kind engross me? No! Stern Art — what sons escape her? Soon I was drawing Gladstone's nose On scraps of blotting paper.
Then on — to play one-fingered tunes Upon my aunt's piano. In short, I have a headlong soul, I much resemble Hanno.
( Forgive the entrance of the not Too cogent Carthaginian. It may have been to make a rhyme; I lean to that opinion ).
Then my great work of book research Till dusk I took in hand — The forming of a final, sound Opinion on The Strand.
But when I quenched the midnight oil, And closed The Referee, Whose thirty volumes folio I take to bed with me,
I had a rather funny dream, Intense, that is, and mystic; I dreamed that, with one leap and yell, The world became artistic.
The Shopmen, when their souls were still, Declined to open shops — And Cooks recorded frames of mind In sad and subtle chops.
The stars were weary of routine: The trees in the plantation Were growing every fruit at once, In search of a sensation.
The moon went for a moonlight stroll, And tried to be a bard, And gazed enraptured at itself: I left it trying hard.
The sea had nothing but a mood Of‘ vague ironic gloom,’ With which t'explain its presence in My upstairs drawing-room.
The sun had read a little book That struck him with a notion: He drowned himself and all his fires Deep in the hissing ocean.
Then all was dark, lawless, and lost: I heard great devilish wings: I knew that Art had won, and snapt The Covenant of Things.
I cried aloud, and I awoke, New labours in my head. I set my teeth, and manfully Began to lie in bed.
Toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing, So I my life conduct. Each morning see some task begun, Each evening see it chucked.
But still, in sudden moods of dusk, I hear those great weird wings, Feel vaguely thankful to the vast Stupidity of things.
Cookies on Poetry Cove