s, Amontillados!
Hear my Recitative, my Romanza, my Spring Onion!

II

You three-striped sergeants, you corporals, non-commissioned officers,
and men with one or more good-conduct badges,
You indifferent and bad characters, am I not also one with you?
And will you not then hear my song?
This for prelude.

III

You, O Mandalay, I sing!
For I see the pagoda, the Moulmein and essentially wotto pagoda,
And the pagoda is above the trees,
But the trees are below the pagoda.

IV

I see the flying-fish sitting on the branches, I hear them sing,
and they fly and mate and build their nests in the branches;
I see a dun-coloured aboriginal she-female, mongolianee, petite,
squat-faced,
And she has a cast in her sinister optic and a snub nose but her
heart is true;
And I gaze into her heart (which is true), and I find that she is
musing (as indeed I often muse) on ME,
Me Prononce, Me Imperturbe, Me Inconscionabilamente.

V

I see [_a page or so unavoidably omitted for lack of space,--refer
to guide-book_] and ... the wind, and the palm-trees idly swaying
to and fro in the wind (now to, now fro), and I hear the bells of
a temple, and I know that they are singing, and what it is that
they would say.

VI

What is it that they would say do you ask Me?

VII

How shall I tell you, how shall I make you understand?
For I know that you do not love Me, you do not comprehend Me, you
say that this sort of thing does you harm;
But I will even now do my darndest (as indeed I always do more or
less), and if you do not like it,
Waal, Soldados?

VIII

Behold, I will write it as a song and put it in italics, so that
even _you_ will know that it _is_ a song;
So listen, listen, Camerados! for I am about to spout and my song
shall be masculine and virile. _A bas_ your metre, _a la lanterne_
your rhyme, _conspuez_ your punctuation,
I say pooh-pooh!

SONG OF BELLS

_Allons! Allons! Tra-la-la! Hear my Bellata!
Why do you not return to Mandalay O soldier?
Do you not remember the boats, and the paddles as they chunked
outside the boats?
Do you not remember the elephants, the mighty elephants, strong,
mysterious, impalpable (no, not impalpable), pachydermatous, and
the