My sleep is disturb’d

by an unruly hound

who on normal nights slumbers

softly beneath my feet.

Yet tonight is different

as oranges differ from tomatoes.

That hound slumbers not

but wails, howls, tears at his kennel door!

He is not a friend of the wind

Nor do the soft rains offer him solace.

The poor hound finds terror in thunder

As if the world were crashing down upon him.

Yet still it rains,

steadily pouring down upon our heads

like a shower worthy of Tatiana’s court,

of which the bard so beautifully wrote.

To sleep once more,

that the immortal world might do its work

as the old stories tell,

whilst we mortals slumber away.