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!