A cleansing fire always burns little Mandus, but it purifies and it makes anew. Did it hurt to carve out the fevered flesh? Did it hurt to cut free the gangrenous foot? Ask instead this: Can we save them?

A skin of a shroud
a stump of the bled
old Lily is flyblown
old Lily is dead
and dreams of the jungle
will flood through her head
and light up her head.

Fear is what keeps us all in our places, and the fear of the flesh, the ruin of the flesh is the greatest of them all.

I am sickened, I am ruined, but I will build such machines to contain this plague and heal us all.

Thrupenny sixpence sparrows and doves
See all the angels a-weeping above
there's no more forgiving, there's no-one to save
for today darling Lily goes into her grave

Send the Tramp Catcher, cosh the old man
Sink him in a barrel of gin
When he's all mixed and the bones turned to jam
We'll raise a glass kindly to him.