10000 Maniacs – The Colonial Wing

[ music: Robert Buck/lyric: Natalie Merchant ]

here is the store house of Her Majesty

well guarded by sentry

but looks are free

call this the rayless and benighted age

witches by tallow candles shifted

shifted their shapes

here is the pestle and mortar

that ground the poison seed

a lute, a suit for jousting

and the poems of a balladeer

when all the Latin books were copied off

in golden script

well hoarded away in

a monastery crypt

superstition

superstition beyond belief

over mountain, over dune and over sea

crude map and compass lead the caravan

and lead the fleet

here’s the loot and plunder

they bore home

ivory tusk inlaid with precious stone

raw silk and spices by the barrel load

a soft skin drum with mallets

of human bone

a world wide rampage

rampage of greed

so here the tour concludes

The Colonial Wing

the rooms of the most refined

museum property

an early pair of spectacles

a claw footed divan

ornate clocks with birds that strut

on the half hours and quarter hours

hear them chime