A flea or not a flea? that is the question: Whether ’tis wiser in a man to suffer The stings and arrows of this insect torture, Or to take arms against the flea that troubles, And, by well squeezing, end him. I’ll try to sleep Once more, and in that sleep I may some rest In part take, and forget the thousand shocks My flesh is bare to. ’Tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished. I’ll try to sleep A sleep without a dream, (Oh, there’s a rub!) Yet in that sleep of mine what fleas may come, When _this_ perchance has ceased his awful toil, And fill their maws! There’s the respect That keeps me wide awake through all the night, Oh! did I bear a whip, ’twould be no crime To work the oppressor’s wrong. For who would bear The pangs of flea-bit nose, what people say The insolence of scoffers, and the turns Which, all impatient, through the night he takes, When he himself could his quietus make Could he but catch his foe? Who would bear Candles, and sweat under a weary search, And set, perhaps, the bed-clothes in a blaze, And thereby haply reach that burn from which No traveller returns? Puzzle who will, _I’d_ rather bear this single flea I have Than wake up others that I know not of; My conscience tells me ’tis a coward’s thought. Another bite! Another resolution! Without avail is further waste of thought. Thus from my couch uprise I in a moment, With swift regard the bed-clothes turned awry, And take the field of action. JAMES ROBINSON. _The Weekly Dispatch_, September 26, 1880 ――――:o:―――― OPHELIA’S VERSION.