Apocrypha, ACT IV
Enter All, bearing orchestral instruments.
CARYBDIS
My 'cello is to-broke.
SCHILLER
                           Then give it me!
And I or mend it or destroy it shall.
CARYBDIS
Why, then a harpsichord I'd bring abune
The stage, and play a sombre fugal strain
To wake the sheeted dead, in which the life
Of parents three
HARRIS
                           Begone, continuo!
Come, symphony for penny-whistles four
LILLIAN
Or octoroons in pianos deep in wine ...
POLO
Come, fragment, let's away to love elsewhere
Exeunt Polo and Lillian
CARYBDIS
They shun us! Well-a, let us dance apace
We reck them not in sweetish hours of love
When we in random prancing can disport
Our several limbs. Come music, music ho!
SCHILLER
Call on the trumpet and the mellow drum!
POLO
(off stage) I th'conductor am do be withal, iwis.
HARRIS
(with heavy irony) Quite possibly! But no more talk of that
All those who would comestibles, pray come
And you, sir Trolleyman, shall feed us fat
As doth the neatherd sate his lowing flock
TROLLEYMAN
Great lords, unless to Trebizond or Neath
Yould'st go, I'll enervate your eager teeth
I'll treat your noses, titillate your buds
Of buns with plates, of wine with ruby floods
Of chewets rare with scores ... But wherefore flee?
All are creeping offstage and break into panic run
LILLIAN
God's Ibex! Surly haunter of this stage,
Fumes unwholesome, curling kites arrive
To scavenge off the curdled blood of those
Who stay.
Exit.
TROLLEYMAN
                This leaves the stage quite clear for me
Ud's teleprinter! What do I espy
Perched high on every branchlet under sky
Catch any round or long inept rescinder,
Jesticulate or bundle out the winder
Defenestrate! Reverberate in Poland
Destroy the hill to reinforce the lowland!