What time I seek my virtuous couch to steal
Some surcease from the labours of the day,
Ere silence like a poultice comes to heal--
In short, when I prepare to hit the hay;
Ere slumber's chains (I quote from Moore) have bound me,
I hear a lot of noises all around me.
Time was when falling off the well-known log
Were harder far than falling off to sleep;
But that was ere my neighbour's gentle dog
Began to think he was defending sheep.
From twelve to two his barking and his howling
Accompanies two torn cats' nightly yowling.
At two-ten sharp the parrot in the flat
Across the way his monologue essays.
At three, again, as Gilbert says, the cat;
At four a milkman's horse, exulted, neighs.
At six-fifteen, nor does it ever vary,
I hear the dulcet tones of a canary.
Each living thing I love; I love the birds;
The beasts in field and forest, too, I love,
But I have writ these poor, if metric words,
To query which, by all the pow'rs above,
Of all the animals--pray tell me, some one--
Is called by any courtesy a dumb one?
