Stanzas to the Speaker Asleep. (1833.)
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’s 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!