Then my great work of book research

Till dusk I took in hand—

The forming of a final, sound

Opinion on The Strand.

But when I quenched the midnight oil,

And closed The Referee,

Whose thirty volumes folio

I take to bed with me,

I had a rather funny dream,

Intense, that is, and mystic;

I dreamed that, with one leap and yell,

The world became artistic.

The Shopmen, when their souls were still,

Declined to open shops—

And Cooks recorded frames of mind

In sad and subtle chops.

The stars were weary of routine:

The trees in the plantation

Were growing every fruit at once,

In search of a sensation.

The moon went for a moonlight stroll,

And tried to be a bard,

And gazed enraptured at itself:

I left it trying hard.

The sea had nothing but a mood

Of 'vague ironic gloom,'

With which t'explain its presence in

My upstairs drawing-room.

The sun had read a little book

That struck him with a notion:

He drowned himself and all his fires

Deep in the hissing ocean.

Then all was dark, lawless, and lost:

I heard great devilish wings:

I knew that Art had won, and snapt

The Covenant of Things.

I cried aloud, and I awoke,

New labours in my head.

I set my teeth, and manfully

Began to lie in bed.

Toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing,

So I my life conduct.

Each morning see some task begun,

Each evening see