[Gail White]

Embedded in the pages of “archy and mehitabel” is one of my favorite poems – a ballade with a double refrain. The poet complicated it further by making “leg” the central rhyme word, which leads to some bizarre usages (to this day I don't know what a chass daf is – does anyone?) Nevertheless, the sheer inventiveness and air of morbid merriment have always delighted me. So here, with the original lack of punctuation, is the poem:

IN THE CATACOMBS

outcast bones from a thousand biers
click us a measure giddy and gleg
and caper my children dance my dears
skeleton rattle your mouldy leg
that one was a gourmet round as a keg
and that had the brow of semiramis
o fleshless forehead bald as an egg
all men s lovers come to this

this eyeless head that laughs and leers
was a chass daf once or a touareg
with golden rings in his yellow ears
skeleton rattle your mouldy leg
marot was this one or wilde or a wegg
who dropped into verses and down the abyss
and those are the bones of my old love meg
all men s lovers come to this

these bones were a ballet girl s for years
parbleu but she shook a wicked peg
and those ribs there were a noble peer s
skeleton rattle your mouldy leg
and here is a duchess who loved a yegg
with her lipless mouth that once drank bliss
down to the dreg of its ultimate dreg
all men s lovers come to this

prince if you pipe and plead and beg
you may yet be crowned with a grisly kiss
skeleton rattle your mouldy leg
all men s lovers come to this