The Spider's Face (Dr. Stockill)

DR. STOCKILL There's a world outside of these crumbling walls Where the weak men hide under battles and brawls And the only pride is a spider that crawls Into the cracks and calmly waits For the flies to realize As they're sitting in the shit and dirt That their heads all ache And their bellies all hurt And there's nothing that can save Neither drink nor skirt For the disease has proven fatal and spreading But the spider knows, and will generously give And he promises the flies that they all shall live Though the cost of a drop of the cure is dear How the penny doth flow when it's death they fear And he cast his web so prodigiously wide That he snared the whole sniveling world inside And the lot who couldn't pay him, well, they bloody died But that's all for the best Puts the terror in the rest For you fear the man who can save your life And your bastard child, and your blithering wife And the petty little people with their petty strife So have a cough? Have a chair For the spider's there! And the spider sees how to bring them all in line How to keep them very quiet, how to herd the swine Though the cost of a drop of the cure is dear How the penny doth flow when it's death they fear! Now the spider thinks, what a glorious game But it's not the gold, and it's not the fame It's the fear the fools are feeling when they praise his name For in their prayers they'll say, "he who gives can take away" And they never ask, not in any last case Where this plague came from in the very first place And the spider smiles with a spider's grace For he knows when all humanity For centuries to come envisions God They will see the spider's face!