The Bench of Boors

By Herman Melville 1819–1891 Herman Melville

In bed I muse on Tenier’s boors,

Embrowned and beery losels all:

A wakeful brain

Elaborates pain:

Within low doors the slugs of boors

Laze and yawn and doze again.

In dreams they doze, the drowsy boors,

Their hazy hovel warm and small:

Thought’s ampler bound

But chill is found:

Within low doors the basking boors

Snugly hug the ember-mound.

Sleepless, I see the slumberous boors

Their blurred eyes blink, their eyelids fall:

Thought’s eager sight

Aches—overbright!

Within low doors the boozy boors

Cat-naps take in pipe-bowl light.

Biography

Although chiefly known for his magisterial novel Moby-Dick and for other prose works, Herman Melville was also a fascinating poet who turned to the art after his serious fiction failed to find appreciative readers. His eccentric verse displays the complexity of thought and verbal richness of his novels, which has led some critics to rank him just below Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson among 19th-century American poets.

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