These are enlightened days in which you can get hot water and cold water out of the same spigot, And everybody has something about which they are pro… - Ogden Nash

Excerpted from A PLEA FOR A LEAGUE OF SLEEP

... My life with joy is sometimes fraught,
But mostly when I'm doing naught.
Yea, I could spend my whole career
A pillow underneath my ear.
How wise was he who wittily said
That there is nothing like a bed.
A mattress is what I like to creep on;
The right side is the one I sleep on.

...Stalin and Hitler while they sleep
Are harmless as a baby sheep;
Tyrants who cause the earth to quake
Are only dangerous when awake.
This world would be a happier place,
And happier the human race,
And all our pilots be less Pontius,
If people spent more time unconscious.

Being a father
Is quite a bother,
But I like it, rather.

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