A LONG EVENING WITH HOLMES

When the world closes in with its worries and cares

And my problems and headaches are coming in pairs

I just climb in my mind up those seventeen stairs

And spend a long evening with Holmes.

~~~ 

The good Doctor greets me and motions me in

Holmes grasps my hand and lays down his violin

Then we sit by the fire and sip a tall gin

When I spend a long evening with Holmes.

~~~ 

And while we’re discussing his cases galore

If I’m lucky there comes a loud knock on the door

In stumbles a client, head splattered with gore

When I spend a long evening with Holmes.

~~~ 

Watson binds up the client’s poor face

While Holmes soon extracts all the facts of the case

Then off in a hansom to Brixton we race

When I spend a long evening with Holmes.

~~~ 

The Adventure is solved, Holmes makes it all right

So back to the lodgings by dawn’s early light

And a breakfast by Hudson to wind up the night

When I spend a long evening with Holmes.

~~~ 

So the modern rat race can’t keep me in a cage

I have a passport to a far better age

As close as my bookcase, as near as a page

I can spend a long evening with Holmes.

—William P. Schweickert