Spanyel! Spanyel! Thine embrace
Places Paws upon my Face;
What celestial Factory
Dare fill thy doggy Heart with glee?

From what Furnace flowed thy Blood?
Whence proceeded all this Mud?
Was that a Cow thou hidst beneath?
What the Tongue? and what the Teeth?

What the Nose? and what the Jaw?
In what Quagmire was thy Paw?
Hast thou swum the Pond as well?
That perhaps explains thy Smell.

Spanyel! Spanyel! Thine embrace
Places Paws upon my Face;
What celestial Factory
Dare fill thy doggy Heart with glee?

I don't intend to die, for I have much to finish first.
But if you plan my funeral, if worst should come to worst,
I want some decent hymns, some "Love Divine"s, and "Guide me, O"s.
Say masses for my soul (for I shall need them, heaven knows),
And ring a muffled quarter-peal, and preach a sermon next
("Behold, that dreamer cometh" should be given as the text),
Then draw a splendid hatchment up, proclaiming my decease.
And cast me where the lamp-post towers over Parker's Piece
That I may lie for evermore and watch the Cambridge skies...
I'll see you in the Eagle then, and stand you beer and pies.

Go north. Go east.  Get lamp.  Get food.  Get key.
Get sword.  Examine sword.  It's glowing blue.
Say "plugh".  You watch the world around you flee.
You're standing near a boulder marked "Y2".
Put Auntie's thing in bag.  It doesn't fit.
(By Infocom.  Wherever games are sold.)
Such antics are the price for us to sit
where Thorin sits and sings about his gold.

You're standing west of house again.  You see:
a robot and a door.  The door sees: you.
You're carrying some fluff, some shades, no tea;
Be careful.  You'll be eaten by a grue.
Oh, now you've gone and fallen in a pit.
You're carrying as much as you can hold.
In Bedquilt.  You see shadows through the slit,
where Thorin sits and sings about his gold.

But Activision's little shopping spree
had turned the world to wanting something new.
It's sad, but still, I think we'd all agree
the Z-machine's demise was overdue.
The day when all the world went sixteen-bit
the era died.  I think they broke the mould
when pictures took the place of words and wit,
where Thorin sits and sings about his gold.

Prince of the numbers, worlds have watched you knit
the memories of processors of old;
you've made a better planet, I submit,
where Thorin sits and sings about his gold.

I watched from Farringdon as Satan fell;
I’ve battled for my soul at Leicester Square;
I’ve laid a ghost with Oystercard and bell;
I’ve tracked the wolf of Wembley to his lair;
I’ve drawn Heathrow’s enchantment in rotation;
at Bank I played the devil for his fare;
I laugh at lesser modes of transportation.
I change at Aldgate East because it’s there.

The Waterloo and City cast its spell;
I watched it slip away, and could not care,
the Northern Line descending into hell
until King’s Cross was more than I could bear;
he left me there in fear for my salvation,
a Mansion House in heaven to prepare:
so why return to any lesser station?
I change at Aldgate East because it’s there.

Three days beneath the earth in stench and smell
I lay, and let the enemy beware:
I learned the truth of tales the children tell:
an Angel plucked me homeward by the hair,
to glory from the depths of condemnation,
to where I started long ago from where
I missed my stop through long procrastination.
I change at Aldgate East because it’s there.

Prince of the buskers, sing your new creation:
the change you ask is more than I can spare;
a change of spirit, soul, imagination.
I change at Aldgate East because it’s there.

For Pennsylvania is the Land
Where Men with Hearts may Understand,
And much the nicest part must be
The County of Montgomery.
And in that district I most like
The town that ends the Pottstown Pike.
For heaven's blessings rarely stick
to folk who live in Limerick,
and you would be the worse to know
the crimes that they commit in Stowe,
and heaven's wrath comes raining down
on men who live in Boyertown,
where sins are strange, and stranger still
are secrets hid in Douglasville;
they'd slit your throat for twenty pence
in frightful Lower Providence
and rumour tells me true that no men
are virtuous in Perkiomen.
But Pottstown, oh, but dear Pottstown!
Why, there a person may lie down
upon its riverbanks so stony,
or paddle in the Manatawny.
They laugh and love their life so well
They're purchasing a carousel.
(And when they get to feeling old,
A thousand senior Cokes are sold
with super fries and apple pie:
McDonalds, Hanover and High.)

Go praise thou the Lord! It's seven o'clock!
You cannot afford to slumber ad hoc.
Five times you've hit snooze, and you've wasted an hour,
Forget your excuse, and go get in the shower.

Go praise thou the Lord! The prayerbook awaits,
its words unexplored, so get on your skates.
It stands on the shelf for the start of the day,
For Jesus himself rose up early to pray.

Go praise thou the Lord! Praise him in the morn!
You seem to be floored. You don't know you're born.
I wake you at six and you wail that you're sunk
but just try your tricks as a friar or monk!

Go praise thou the Lord! Take heed what I say:
I know you've implored today's Saturday;
No more may you lurk with alarm clock ignored;
For praising takes work, so go praise thou the Lord!

"Is there anybody there?" said the caller,
"Six ten eight oh one two four three nine?"
And his ears attuned to the empty hum
Of the long-forgotten line;
And an LED on the handset
Flashed, for a moment, red,
And he dialled the number a second time:
"Is there anybody there?" he said.
But no one replied to the caller,
No sound but the dialling tone
Came drifting into his waiting ear
As he held that haunted phone;
But only a host of phantom listeners,
Of spectres weak and strange
Stood hearkening to that human voice
That echoed around the exchange;
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
And his heart was afraid and nervous,
With his hand on the final digit
Of that number not in service;
For he suddenly tapped the receiver
And spoke on that line of dread:
"Tell them I called, and no one answered,
That I kept my word!" he said;
Ay, they heard him replace the receiver,
And his mumbled cursing later,
With the usual subdued but enthused delight
Of the switchboard operator.