The raven is a dicky-bird,
SARALTHIA _(singing):_
The jackal is a daisy,
NELLIBRAC _(singing):_
The wall-mouse is a worthy third,
A SPOOK _(singing):_
But mortals all are crazy.
CHORUS OF SKULLS:
O mortals all are crazy,
Their intellects are hazy;
In the growing moon they shake their shoon
And trip it in the mazy.
But when the moon is waning,
Their senses they're regaining:
They fall to prayer and from their hair
Remove the straws remaining.
SARALTHIA:
That's right, Rogues Gallery, pray keep it up:
Your song recalls my Villiam's "Auld Lang Syne,"
What time he came and (like an amorous bird
That struts before the female of its kind,
Warbling to cave her down the bank) piped high
His cracked falsetto out of reach. Enough--
Now let's to business. Nellibrac, sweet child,
St. Cloacina's future devotee,
The time is ripe and rotten--gut the grip!
_(Nellibrac brings forward a valise and takes from it five
articles of clothing, which, one by one, she lays upon the points
of a magic pentagram that has thoughtfully inscribed itself in
lines of light on the wet grass. The Body holds its late lamented
nose.)_
NELLIBRAC _(singing):_
Fragrant socks, by Villiam's toes
Consecrated to the nose;
Shirt that shows the well worn track
Of the knuckles of his back,
Handkerchief with mottled stains,
Into which he blew his brains;
Collar crying out for soap--
Prophet of the future rope;
An unmentionable thing
It would sicken me to sing.
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