Caprice - The Mewlips

The shadows where the Mewlips dwell
Are dark and wet as ink
And slow and soft rings their bell
As in the slime you sink,
And you sink into the slime who dare
To knock upon their door
While down the grinning gargoyles stare
And noisome waters pour.

Beside the rotting river strand
The drooping willows weep,
And gloomily the gorcrows stand
Croaking in their sleep.

Over the Merlock Mountains
A long and weary way
In a mouldy valley where trees are grey
By a dark pool's border withour wind or tide
Moonless and sunless
The Mewlips hide
The Mewlips hide...

The cellars where the Mewlips sit
Are deep and dank and cold
With one sickly candle lit;
And there they count their gold
Their walls are wet, their ceilings drip,
Their feet upon the floor,
Go softly with a squish-flap-flip
As they sidle to the door.

They peep our slyly; through the crack
Their feeling fingers creep
And when they finish in a sack
Your bones they take to keep.

Beyond the Merlock Mountains, a long and lonely road
Through the spider-shadow and marsh of Tode,
And through the wood of hanging trees and gallows-weed
You go find the Mewlips, and Mewlips feed
And Mewlips feed
And Mewlips feed...