An Author’s Poetic Slumbers

Allow I to tell thee of a rather floral, if somewhat amusing poem I constructed just the other fortnight, on the occasion of my wife going to her chamber. It had passed the twilight hour by some stretch and I, in my bed-clothes already and with my candle and snuffer in hand, led the Lady of the House to her slumbers. She, it is trite of I to say, was a picture of beauty in her bed-time finery and it was all I could do to keep some degree of restraint about myself, given my lustful ways of late. (I suspect the cook of withholding my usual dose of bromide – though as to her motives I am at some loss.)

Notwithstanding my own clumsy musings on the state of my seediness, I took myself, and indeed my good Lady, to the wash-stand where began our mutual and much tiresome nocturnal ablutions. 

On completion of this, I watched my dearest powder her face until she was rouged like a shy lobster, and thus I tucked her ‘neath the sheets and coverlets before perching myself, all upright and rigid, at the end corner of the bed. 

And so I began with my poem with the utmost rigour and integrity, and with which I can now regale the reader of this fine periodical.

My hope is that my prose may become much lauded among the ladies and their gentlemen – (and) could perhaps out-do Shakespeare or Shelley in time to pass. For now, let it be so heard, it is a short ballad and begins thusly…  

The Lyric of Propagation

By Charlie Duckins (1873)

I wish I was your bumble bee, my heart all true and solemn

I’d buzz around your honey-pot and suckle on your pollen

I’d focus on your petal’d lips, there’d be no need to wait

I’d feed upon your flower’d bud and gently pollinate

I’d be so gay within myself, my soul would surely sing

And if I did withdraw my love, I’d take away my sting

For that is what I’d pierce you with, and if it’s ever freed

You’d never really germinate, nor taste upon my seed

So let me be your bumble bee, my heart all true and solemn

I’d buzz around your honey-pot, and suckle on your pollen

On hearing my lyric that night The Lady of the House smiled, whispered something about clowns and bawdiness (?) and promptly fell into a deep swoon. I however, in much hubris, picked up my quill (sic) to write of another…

Charlie Duckins 1873