Analysis of A Nightmare
When you're lying awake with a dismal headache, and repose is
taboo'd by anxiety,
I conceive you may use any language you choose to indulge in
without impropriety;
For your brain is on fire - the bedclothes conspire of usual
slumber to plunder you:
First your counterpane goes and uncovers your toes, and your sheet
slips demurely from under you;
Then the blanketing tickles - you feel like mixed pickles, so
terribly sharp is the pricking,
And you're hot, and you're cross, and you tumble and toss till
there's nothing 'twixt you and the ticking.
Then the bedclothes all creep to the ground in a heap, and you pick
'em all up in a tangle;
Next your pillow resigns and politely declines to remain at its
usual angle!
Well, you get some repose in the form of a doze, with hot eyeballs
and head ever aching,
But your slumbering teems with such horrible dreams that you'd very
much better be waking;
For you dream you are crossing the Channel, and tossing about in a
steamer from Harwich,
Which is something between a large bathing-machine and a very small
second-class carriage;
And you're giving a treat (penny ice and cold meat) to a party of
friends and relations -
They're a ravenous horde - and they all came on board at Sloane
Square and South Kensington Stations.
And bound on that journey you find your attorney (who started that
morning from Devon);
He's a bit undersized, and you don't feel surprised when he tells
you he's only eleven.
Well, you're driving like mad with this singular lad (by the bye
the ship's now a four-wheeler),
And you're playing round games, and he calls you bad names when you
tell him that "ties pay the dealer";
But this you can't stand, so you throw up your hand, and you find
you're as cold as an icicle,
In your shirt and your socks (the black silk with gold clocks),
crossing Salisbury Plain on a bicycle:
And he and the crew are on bicycles too - which they've somehow or
other invested in -
And he's telling the tars all the particuLARS of a company he's
interested in -
It's a scheme of devices, to get at low prices, all goods from
cough mixtures to cables
(Which tickled the sailors) by treating retailers, as though they
were all vegeTAbles -
You get a good spadesman to plant a small tradesman (first take off
his boots with a boot-tree),
And his legs will take root, and his fingers will shoot, and
they'll blossom and bud like a fruit-tree -
From the greengrocer tree you get grapes and green pea,
cauliflower, pineapple, and cranberries,
While the pastry-cook plant cherry-brandy will grant - apple puffs,
and three-corners, and banberries -
The shares are a penny, and ever so many are taken by ROTHSCHILD
and BARING,
And just as a few are allotted to you, you awake with a shudder
despairing -
You're a regular wreck, with a crick in your neck, and no wonder
you snore, for your head's on the floor, and you've needles and
pins from your soles to your shins, and your flesh is a-creep, for
your left leg's asleep, and you've cramp in your toes, and a fly on
your nose, and some fluff in your lung, and a feverish tongue, and
a thirst that's intense, and a general sense that you haven't been
sleeping in clover;
But the darkness has passed, and it's daylight at last, and the
night has been long - ditto, ditto my song - and thank goodness
they're both of them over!
Scheme | ABCBDEFEGHIHHDJDKHBHLMNOPQRQSTUTVWEWXDYDZC1 C2 3 4 3 5 B6 BB1 7 A8 HWHW6 Z9 6 CWL0 W |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111001101010011 110100 1011111010111010 010100 1111110010101100 101101 111101011011 10101101 10100101111101 1001101 0110110110011 110110010 10111101001011 1110010 11100100100110111 10010 111101001101111 011010 1110011110011110 110110 11111100100100100 1011 11100101100100101 10110 01100110101110101 10010 10100101111111 10110010 0111101110101101 10110 10110011101111 1110010 111011111001101 0110110 01101101111111 11111010 11111111111011 11111100 011011011111 10100110100 010011110011111 100100 011001100100101001 1000 1011010111110111 110110 11001011010111 01100 1101111011111 111011 0111110110110 110011011 1011111011 10010010 101011101011101 011001 01101001011011011 010 011011010111011010 010 1010011010110110 1111110101100 11111110111011 111010110110011 110110110010010 0110100100111101 10010 1010110111100 11111010110110 111110 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 3,256 |
Words | 606 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 70 |
Lines Amount | 70 |
Letters per line (avg) | 37 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 2,579 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 604 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 09, 2023
- 3:10 min read
- 112 Views
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"A Nightmare" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/41199/a-nightmare>.
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