may the Lord bless the
man who invented noble sleep
and was never told
Adapted from the poem, Glad to Sleep by Julius C. Wright in the 1906 book, Poetic Diamonds.
God bless the man who invented noble sleep
Bless his noble eye
Bless him that he didn’t keep
His wonderful invention, nor try
May the Lord bless him; yes, I say,
Lord, bless his soul
Invented almost the greatest thing
And was never told
Mr. Wright identified himself as, “A Youth of Twenty Years, Who Never Spent a Day in College.“
And he wrote in the preface to Poetic Diamonds:
Whether or not the contents of this little volume will suit you I can’t tell. But I have put forth my best efforts to compose something to please everybody —
The Saint and the sinner,
The looser and the winner,
The great and the small.
The low and the tall.
So I have pulled wide the throttle to let it go, and ask you to keep your eyes upon the rails that it may be widely and publicly circulated. And I truly hope that it will find a useful field of labor instead of filling an early grave in the cemetery of forgetfulness.
The poem took me as I had a late late late night the other and as I learned in college, it was the day after an ‘all-nighter’ that killed me, it was the day after the day after that I was a zombie.
But last night I had a noble sleep.
A sleep so tired that I didn’t dream.
Just a noble sleep.
Then that last paragraph I quoted from the preface.
So I have pulled wide the throttle to let it go, and ask you to keep your eyes upon the rails that it may be widely and publicly circulated. And I truly hope that it will find a useful field of labor instead of filling an early grave in the cemetery of forgetfulness.
I find it hard to get my arms around that I have been writing these haiku now for five years.
I started in January of 2019 after a morning of mindless commuting in Atlanta when I started to take note of odd combinations of words as I listened to books on tape and looked at the signs and advertising on my way downtown.
My admin page says I have made 1,786 posts and used 741,983 words (I know I copy and paste often so I cannot say I have written 741,983 words).
This is all a bit much and a bit nutz at the same time but the drinking song from La Traviata is playing on the radio just now so as I good Roman, I will take that for a positive omen.
I have pulled wide the throttle to let it go, and ask you to keep your eyes upon the rails that it may be widely and publicly circulated.
And I truly hope that it will find a useful field of labor instead of filling an early grave in the cemetery of forgetfulness.
No Haiku For You 