Author: Nicholas Cox

Once upon a midnight dreary, answering my homework query,
Over work procrastinated only but a month before,
While I hurried nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my bedroom door,
'Twas my mother to deliver message that I so abhor,
     "Got to bed, 'tis half past four!"

Un-distinctly I remember all I learned up to December,
Of Sir Henry Bessemer or the knightly days of yore,
Eagerly I wished the morrow, for today brought only sorrow,
Sorrow for the chance so narrow, to have passed that test, major,
As, passed-back that endeavor, here I read aloud the score,
     "Seven out of Twenty-Four!"

Oh that craven of self-pity, brought about by acts laxity,
There I noticed nothing witty - "Seven out of Twenty-Four!"
Then a startle from that seeming, known, now, I was only dreaming,
And the sun-light o'er me beaming caused me, now, to sleep no more,
And I praised when sleep was lifted what a revelancy bore,
     'Tis Saturday! And nothing more!