[900] Ballad: The Sorcerer's Song

Oh! My name is John Wellington Wells -
I'm a dealer in magic and spells,
In blessings and curses,
And ever-filled purses,
In prophecies, witches, and knells!
If you want a proud foe to make tracks -
If you'd melt a rich uncle in wax -
You've but to look in
On our resident Djinn,
Number seventy, Simmery Axe!

We've a first-class assortment of magic;
And for raising a posthumous shade
With effects that are comic or tragic,
There's no cheaper house in the trade.
Love-philtre - we've quantities of it;
And for knowledge if any one burns,
We keep an extremely small prophet, a prophet
Who brings us unbounded returns:

   For he can prophesy
   With a wink of his eye,
   Peep with security
   Into futurity,
   Sum up your history,
   Clear up a mystery,
   Humour proclivity
   For a nativity.
   With mirrors so magical,
   Tetrapods tragical,
   Bogies spectacular,
   Answers oracular,
   Facts astronomical,
   Solemn or comical,
   And, if you want it, he
   Makes a reduction on taking a quantity!

Oh! If anyone anything lacks,
He'll find it all ready in stacks,
If he'll only look in
On the resident Djinn,
Number seventy, Simmery Axe!

   He can raise you hosts,
   Of ghosts,
   And that without reflectors;
   And creepy things
   With wings,
   And gaunt and grisly spectres!
   He can fill you crowds
   Of shrouds,
   And horrify you vastly;
   He can rack your brains
   With chains,
   And gibberings grim and ghastly.
   Then, if you plan it, he
   Changes organity
   With an urbanity,
   Full of Satanity,
   Vexes humanity
   With an inanity
   Fatal to vanity -
   Driving your foes to the verge of insanity.
   Barring tautology,
   In demonology,
   'Lectro biology,
   Mystic nosology,
   Spirit philology,
   High class astrology,
   Such is his knowledge, he
   Isn't the man to require an apology

Oh! My name is John Wellington Wells -
I'm a dealer in magic and spells,
In blessings and curses,
And ever-filled purses -
In prophecies, witches, and knells.
If any one anything lacks,
He'll find it all ready in stacks,
If he'll only look in
On the resident Djinn,
Number seventy, Simmery Axe!

	-- W. S. Gilbert