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Decked with rare gems, and beauty rarer still,
Walked from Killarney to the Giant's Causeway
Through rebels, smugglers, troops of yeomanry,
White-boys, and Orange-boys, and constables,
Tithe-proctors, and excise people, uninjured!
Thus I!-

Lord PURGANAX, I do commit myself
Into your custody, and am prepared
To stand the test, whatever it may be!

PURGANAX.

This magnanimity in your sacred majesty
Must please the pigs. You cannot fail of being
A heavenly angel. Smoke your bits of glass,
Ye loyal swine, or her transfiguration

Will blind your wondering eyes.

[blocks in formation]

Know that my foes even thus prepare their fall!

[Exeunt omnes

SCENE II.

The interior of the Temple of FAMINE. The statue of the Goddess, a skeleton clothed in party-coloured rags, seuted upon a heap of skulls and loaves intermingled. Anuriber of exceedingly fat Priests in black garments arrayed on each side, with marrow-bones and cleavers in their hands. A flourish of trumpets.

Enter MAMMON as Arch-priest, SwEllfoot, Dakry, PubGANAX, LAOCTONOS, followed by IONA TAURINA guarded. On the other side enter the Swine.

CHORUS OF PRIESTS,

(accompanied by the Court Porkman on marrow-bones and cleavers.)

Goddess bare, and gaunt, and pale,

Empress of the world, all hail!

What though Cretans old called thee

City-crested Cybele?

We call thee FAMINE!

Goddess of fasts and feasts, starving and cram

ming;

Through thee, for emperors, kings, and priests

and lords,

Who rule by viziers, sceptres, bank-notes, words, The earth pours forth its plenteous fruits,

Corn, wool, linen, flesh, and roots.

Those who consume these fruits through thee grow fat,

Those who produce these fruits through thee

grow lean,

Whatever change takes place, O, stick to that!

And let things be as they have ever been;
At least while we remain thy priests,
And proclaim thy fasts and feasts!

Through thee the sacred SWELLFOOT dynasty
Is based upon a rock amid that sea
Whose waves are swine-so let it ever be!

[SWELLFOOT, &c. seat themselves at a table, magnifi
cently covered at the upper end of the temple. Attend-
ants pass over the stage with hog-wash in pails. A num-
ber of Pigs, exceedingly lean, follow them licking up the
wash.

MAMMON.

I fear your sacred majesty has lost

The appetite which you were used to have.
Allow me now to recommend this dish—
A simple kickshaw by your Persian cook,
Such as is served at the great King's second table
The price and pains which its ingredients cost,
Might have maintained some dozen families
A winter or two-not more-so plain a dish
Could scarcely disagree.

SWELLFOOT.

After the trial,

And these fastidious pigs are gone, perhaps

I may recover my lost appetite.

I feel the gout flying about my stomach;
Give me a glass of Maraschino punch.

PURGANAX.

[Filling his glass, and standing up.

The glorious constitution of the Pigs!

ALL.

A toast! a toast! stand up, and three times three!

DAKRY.

No heel-taps-darken day-lights!

LAOCTONOS.

Claret, somehow,

Puts me in mind of blood, and blood of claret!

SWELLFOOT.

Laoctonos is fishing for a compliment;

But 'tis his due. Yes, you have drunk more wine, And shed more blood, than any man in Thebes.

(To PURGANAX)

For God's sake stop the grunting of those pigs!

PURGANAX.

We dare not, sire! 'tis Famine's privilege.

CHORUS OF SWINE.

Hail to thee, hail to thee, Famine!

Thy throne is on blood, and thy robe is of rags;

Thou devil which livest on damning;

Saint of new churches and cant, and GREEN

BAGS;

Till in pity and terror thou risest,
Confounding the schemes of the wisest.
When thou liftest thy skeleton form,

When the loaves and the skulls roll about, We will greet thee-the voice of a storm Would be lost in our terrible shout!

Then hail to thee, hail to thee, Famine!
Hail to thee, Empress of Earth!
When thou risest, dividing possessions;
When thou risest, uprooting oppressions;
In the pride of thy ghastly mirth :
Over palaces, temples, and graves,
We will rush as thy minister-slaves,
Trampling behind in thy train,
Till all be made level again!

MAMMON.

I hear a crackling of the giant bones

Of the dread image, and in the black pits

Which once were eyes, I see two livid flames : These prodigies are oracular, and show

The presence of the unseen Deity.

Mighty events are hastening to their doom'

SWELLFOOT.

I only hear the lean and mutinous swine
Grunting about the temple.

DAKRY.

In a crisis

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