I had a dream, I had a horrid dream.

I dreamt that Byron travels for a house

That handles wines from Portugal and Spain,

That Shelley is a cashier of a bank,

That Keats is valet to a wealthy Jew,

That Oscar Wilde lays bricks, that Edgar Poe

Is selling silks and satins on the road,

And that Walt Whitman, he of noble height,

Is manager of a department store.

And I would have dreamed on, had not disgust,

A flood of dire disgust, awakened me,

And I myself was forced to rush downtown

To live the life I shudder at in dream.