10,000 Maniacs - The Colonial Wing Lyrics

Here is the store house of Her Majesty
Well guarded by sentry but looks are free

Call this the ray-less and benighted age
Witches by tallow candles shifted
Shifted their shapes

Here is the pestle and mortar
That ground the poison seed
A lute, a suit for jousting
And the poems of a balladeer

When all the Latin books
Were copied off in golden script
Well hoarded away in
A monastery crypt

Superstition
Superstition beyond belief

Over mountain, over dune and over sea
Crude map and compass lead the caravan
And lead the fleet

Here's the loot and plunder
They bore home
Ivory tusk inlaid with precious stone

Raw silk and spices by the barrel load
A soft skin drum with mallets
Of human bone

A world wide rampage
Rampage of greed

So here the tour concludes
The Colonial Wing
The rooms of the most refined
Museum property

An early pair of spectacles
A claw footed divan
Ornate clocks with birds that strut
On the half hours and quarter hours

Hear them chime