Morning breaks on crooked arm,From dreams I resist sun.(Wake, wake, you slugabed,Work needs to be done.)Very greatly, lassitudeTethers me to bed.(But without your work-a-dayChildren won’t be fed.)In a slumber well intactFortunes visit me.(To collar me in dream-landThey beg on bended knee.)Sleep-dismissing day and work,Spirits drag me down.(You’ve no use for daylight.Sink, sink and drown.)Last-ditch fury, roil the quiltsOf my tender sleep.(May as well stop fighting.Laugh, laugh the deep.)
#23 of 30 Poems in November to benefit Center for New Americans, styled after a poem titled "In Arcady" by William Cosmo Monkhouse (1840-1901).