_That? Oh that is merely one_
_Of those innumerous congeries_
_Of parasites by which, since time began,_
_Space has been interfested._
SPIRIT SINISTER.
_What a pity_
_We have no means of stamping out these pests!_
SPIRIT IRONIC.
_Nay, but I like to watch them buzzing round,_
_Poor little trumpery ephaeonals!_
CHORUS OF THE PIETIES (aerial music).
_Yes, yes!_
_What matter a few more or less?_
_Here and Nowhere plus_
_Whence and Why makes Thus._
_Let these things be._
_There's room in the world for them and us._
_Nothing is,_
_Out in the vast immensities_
_Where these things flit,_
_Irrequisite_
_In a minor key_
_To the tune of the sempiternal It._
SPIRIT IRONIC.
_The curious thing about them is that some_
_Have lesser parasites adherent to them--_
_Bipedular and quadrupedular_
_Infinitesimals. On close survey_
_You see these movesome. Do you not recall,_
_We once went in a party and beheld_
_All manner of absurd things happening_
_On one of those same--planets, don't you call them?_
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS (screwing up his eyes at the Solar System).
_One of that very swarm it was, if I mistake not.
Pages:
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53