Buckets overflowing for the worthy cause
Spit-wiping pears on your sooted shirt
Saying prayers for the working dirt
But that's what you are since you got so give-in
Holding out your hand, ripe for the taking

Some detail caught in the lantern glow
Saw frayed cuffs wiping at a dripping nose
And red wheels on a donkey's hide that'll never come off
Can roll and roll in the pasture but it'll never come off
Is this where you are since you got so feeble
Huddled down in the crypt where you fight evil

So wet blessed with Jerusalem and jam
Your cloak soaked right through and drowned the precious little lamb
You can't be shook or hurt because the ark's already built
Well if only cream gets in then let's pray God cradles milk
That's what you are though you try so hard
To keep the devil down in your own backyard

Our charity began at home and set sail on a boat
Through looks stuck in rivers and arrows stuck in throats
Left in shelves of silt deep down in the banks
Lies an invisible interest and someone to thank
For all that you are since you got so lived in
A place you can trust when our charity's willing


II - Aah the meeting was good and the friends were kind
and the temperance brass band struck up just in time
(give the blind man change)
It's like the sap is rising on the trunk (root and branch)
And some of the guys were rolling round drunk(looking for love)
Beaks wet with lipstick and elderberry wine (the homemade kind)
tap out SOS to a lilied high tide (find out we're tied...)
and think of all the misfortune they might yet find (..to this life)
and others they've dodged or left behind
And that's what they are since you got so giving,
held out their hands waiting to be shaken.

Brass plates and forelocks, manor gates and sweatshops
(from little acorns grow)
railings and sidings and triumphs over weaklings
(I bend saplings and they bend me)
Beatings and hidings going strong in quire stalls
and I've grown quite feint at Victorian mores
Sure the poorhouse scrubbed up well but still had to pull it down
Peel the lice paste from your skin and the gilt from your crown

So what part did you play in the latest crusade?
(Plans that relayed..)
These ventures for good (...national trust) and gottens for gain.
Who stumped up the readies, the willings and ables
(into which we poured our love..)
through canes, sticks and birches and twelve times tables
(..long after the cause left us)
It's quite a feat to make the world blush pink
To get knee deep in mud and not even flinch


III - The veil's been parted so keep your twisted legs hid
'cos no rods are spared on a surly cripple of a kid
And when you're all three you should keep low in the ditch.
Pawn your locket for blankets on nights blacker than pitch.
When oaks begin to creak and lungs start to wheeze
(when folks begin to say amen I'll think again)
and you've made your last farthing from gathering leaves
you'll meet a monkey in a pulpit who'll pour silver on your hands
and make chimp out of Jesus and tell you how it began.

(Oh baby if only I'd made it all up see...)
Hell the blzzard's here and I've not spoken
(...I want you to treat me like I was equal)
freely or dammed or closed or open
(She's open or not see...)
Ever ready, upright (..but my heart was unlocked)
you'll be lashed soon enough for those spells, short and smashed,
when I was looking for love
It's time for a change beyond your control,
clippers are tossed as the seas start to roll

The kid got low slithering around
stomach on cinders eating worms that she found
Has a plague pit for a neighbour and first pick on a plot
Gnaws long and yellow on roots that won't rot
The bit bores black and the bed spits it out
leaves our sopping wretch with five tenths of a shout
In the earth's juice 'neath the crust she's taken aback
to the glory years of sudden attack
That's what you got if you add it up
- gum, bottletops and pennies in a pewter cup
And that's what I am since I got so give in
- held out my hand and I waited to be shaken.