When you're lying awake
With a dismal headache
And repose is taboo'd by anxiety
I concede you may use
Any language you choose
To indulge in without impropriety
For your brain is on fire,
Your bedclothes conspire
Of usual slumber to plunder you
First your counterpane goes
And uncovers your toes
Then your sheet slips demurely from under you.
Your 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. . .
-"The Bicycle Song"
*Iolanthe*
W.S. Gilbert
