Aurora Australis/Midwinter Night

by Nemo

MIDWINTER NIGHT.

The acetylene splutters and flickers,

The night comes into its own.

Outside Ambrose and Terror

Are snarling over a bone.

And this is the tale the watchman,

Awake in the dead of night,

Tells of the fourteen sleepers

Whose snoring gives him the blight.

The revels of Eros and Bacchus

Are mingled in some of their dreams,

For the songs they gustin gurgle

Are allied to bibulous themes.

And subjects re barmaids and bottles,

Whisky and barrels of beer,

Are mixed with amorous pleadings

That sound decidedly queer. Darling you really love me?

Stutters one dreaming swain;

The watchman whispers “Never,”

And the dreamer writhes in pain.

From the corner cabin a mutter,

The listener kens not what;

It sounds like “yon pale moon,”

Or some other poetic rot.

Murder is done in another’s dream

And falls from shuddering heights;

Erebus rises to dance on the sea

And the dreamer flees south in tights.

Another sails north on the broken ice

Just dressed in Nature’s clothes,

Whilst seals and penguins grin in delight

And the frost plays hell with his toes.

And some see tailors they knew of yore,

Stalk in with their mile-long bills;

And everyone when morning broke

Made a rush for calomel pills.

VERITAS.