I held your hand and watched the blood pool between your legs. You lived long enough to see Edwin, but not Enoch. I will take care of them my love, I promise you this.

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.

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.

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

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?