What Turkey, Oronoko, Cavendish!
There's the fuel to make a chafing dish,
A chafing dish to peel the petty
Paint that girls and boys call pretty--
Peel it off from lip and cheek:
We've none such here; yet, if ye seek
An infallible test for a raw beginner,
Mundungus will always discover a sinner.
Now ye are charged, we give the word
Light! and pour it thro' your noses,
And let it hover and lodge in your hair
Bird-like, bird-like--You're aware
Anacreon had a bird--
A bird! and filled _his_ bowl with roses.
Ha ha! ye laugh in ghastlywise,
And the smoke comes through your eyes,
And you're looking very grim,
And the air is very dim,
And the casual paper flare
Taketh still a redder glare.
Now thou pretty little fellow,
Now thine eyes are turning yellow,
Thou shalt be our page to-night!
Come and sit thee next to us,
And as we may want a light
See that thou be dexterous.
Now bring forth your tractates musty,
Dry, cadaverous, and dusty,
One, on the sound of mammoths' bones
In motion; one, on Druid-stones:
Show designs for pipes most ghastly,
And devils and ogres grinning nastily!
Show, show the limnings ye brought back,
Since round and round the zodiac
Ye galloped goblin horses which
Were light as smoke and black as pitch;
And those ye made in the mouldy moon,
And Uranus, Saturn, and Neptune,
And in the planet Mercury,
Where all things living and dead have an eye
Which sometimes opening suddenly
Stareth and startleth strangely
But now the night is growing better,
And every jet of smoke grows _jetter_,
While yet there blinks sufficient light,
Bring in those skeletons that fright
Most men into fits, but that
We relish for their want of fat.
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