The Mewlips

The shadows where the Mewlips dwell
      Are dark and wet as ink,
And slow and softly rings their bell,
      As in the slime you sink.

You sink into the slime, who dare
       To knock upon their door,
While down the grinning gargoyles stare
        And noisome waters pour.

Beside the rotting river-strand
        The drooping willows weep,
And gloomily the gorcrows stand
        Croaking in their sleep.

Over the Merlock Mountains a long and weary way,
         In a mouldy valley where the trees are grey,
By a dark pool's borders without wind or tide,
         Moonless and sunless, the Mewlips hide.

The cellars where the Mewlips sit
        Are deep and dank and cold
With single sickly candle lit;
       And there they count their gold.

Their walls are wet, their ceiling drip;
      Their feet upon the floor,
Go softly with a squish-flap-flip,
       As they sidle to the door.

They peep out slyly, through a crack
     Their feeling fingers creep,
And when they've finished, in a sack,
      Your bones they take to keep.

Beyond the Merlock Mountains, a long and lonely road,
      Through the spider-shadows and the marsh of Tode,
And through the wood of hanging trees and the gallows weed,
     You got to find the Mewlips -- and the Mewlips feed.