NIGHTMARE
Reading edition
I had a dream, I had a horrid dream. I dreamt that Byron travels for a house That handles wines from Portugal and Spain, That Shelley is a cashier of a bank, That Keats is valet to a wealthy Jew, That Oscar Wilde lays bricks, that Edgar Poe Is selling silks and satins on the road, And that Walt Whitman, he of noble height, Is manager of a department store. And I would have dreamed on, had not disgust, A flood of dire disgust, awakened me, And I myself was forced to rush downtown To live the life I shudder at in dream.