Camomile Tea

(Parody of Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe)

It was many and many a year ago,
In a cot by the Irish sea,
A decoction I knew of which you may know,
By the name of Camomile Tea;
A stuff which was brewed with no other end
Than to plague and be drunk by me.

I was a child, a mere bit of a child,
When I lived in that cot by the sea;
But I hated with hate which was more than hate
That horrible Camomile Tea.
A hate which was visible, I have no doubt,
To the eyes of my Aunt Magee.

And this is the reason, I happen to know,
Why she always was down on me,
Whenever I had the least malady, filling
A tumbler with Camomile Tea,
And drenching me three times a day with the same
The horriblest bore that could be
And shutting me up in my bedroom for hours,
With a tract and more Camomile Tea.

Even now, strange it seems, I have hideous dreams
Of that horrible Camomile Tea;
Of its taste when I think I still shudder and shrink
At the nauseous Camomile Tea;
And I muse in amaze at that old woman’s craze,
On the loathing, the loathing I felt in those days,
When I lived in that cot by the sea.
In that cot with my Aunt Magee.

Punch’s Almanac. 1883.