The political and occasional poems of Winthrop Mackworth Praed ::

I know it was extremely wrong,
But there I nodded, yawned and slept.
I slept. By Lethe's drowsy lake!
I hold him not of woman born,
Who can contrive to keep awake
Through more than half an hour of Horne.

I dreamed a dream. There came a change
On day and night, on heaven and earth;
Whate'er I saw was new and strange;
All Nature had a second birth;
Antiquity began to stare,
Arithmetic was all aghast,
For round was turning into square,
And two and two were five, at last!

Above, below, methought I saw
More marvels than the Muse can name;
A Denman with a little law;
A Harvey with some sense of shame.
Methought I heard Lord Althorp say
A thing which Canning might have said,
And found that Lord John Russell's play
Was pretty generally read.

Calley was sober; Hunt was dumb;
Sir Henry Parnell had no plan;

177

Sheil reasoned; Stanley was become
A most good-natured gentleman;
There were no robbers left in Greece;
There were no papists left in Rome;
And Clare and Kerry were at peace;
So, also, was thy nose, Lord Brougham!

I too was changed. I wrote a speech
To prove my grandfather a slave;
I taught what Scotch Reviewers teach;
I raved as Bowring's pupils rave.
At city feasts I learnt to bless
The memory of immortal Cade,
And “fructified” with great success,
One morning, at the Board of Trade.

I felt that Whiggism was divine;
I bowed immensely low at Sheen;
I praised Lord Holland's wit and wine;
I wrote a libel on the Queen.
I whispered that the Bishops want
The schoolmaster's instructive rod,
And vowed that it is monstrous cant
To talk of Providence or God.

Apt student in the Liberal school,
I earned my patron's worthless pay;

178

I took a cheque from Wellesley Pole,
And worse, a title from Lord Grey.
Alas, it was a dream of fear,
A dream of guilt, a dream of pain;
For all O'Connell bagged last year
I would not dream that dream again!

University of Virginia Library

XVI. THE DREAM OF A REPORTER.