Adds a Thirteenth!
A wily, wicked wight,
Dwelling in noxious nooks as dark as night,
Beyond the radius of the housemaid's broom,
And thence dispensing dire disgrace and doom
Long time our homes hath haunted. Greedy Ghoul,
As furtive of advance as fierce of soul,
The Money-lending Spider is his name,
And grim and gruesome was his little game.
Of swollen body, of protuberant beak,
He knew that Youths were green, and Infants weak,
And spun his web, invisible but strong,
Where'er GRAY's well-named "little triflers" throng,
Who, verily unmindful of their doom,
He watched from forth his grubby haunts of gloom,
And strove by sinister device to lure,
Till, 'midst his viscous mazes once secure,
Them he might seize and suck.
The Birds, the Boar,
The Lion, or the Bull, all whom before
Great Herschelles had tackled, were not worse
Than the Colossal Spider, Albion's curse,
The scourge of childish Wealth and youthful Rank,
The Moloch of our Minors! Fathers, thank
Our new Alcides, who, with legal club,
Could dare the web assault, the Spider drub!
Worse than Tarantula venom hath the bite
Of this Conkiferous Ogre, which to fight
Herschelles did adventure! Thump! Bang! Whack!
The web is burst, the Spider's on his back,