Rats in the Walls

They say my family home is cursed
By dark and ancient rituals
By blasphemous acts of murder and flight
They say the curse itself has died

My wife and son have both passed away
And I've grown old and decadent
What better place to while my days
With my friend Norrys by my side

But the poorly-named cat hears the rats in the walls
As downward and downward they skitter and crawl
And the ravenous hunger that once kept them fed
Truly can never be quite abated

I met Norrys back in the war
And he sold me my ancestral home
And told me of the ancient terror
A plague of craven vermin

De La Poer had kept them fed
In dark places, forbidden things
But when he died, supply was cut short
And out to feed they came swarming

But the poorly-named cat hears the rats in the walls
As downward and downward they skitter and crawl
And the ravenous hunger that once kept them fed
Truly can never be quite abated

Why shouldn't rats eat a De La Poer
As a De La Poer eats forbidden things
The war ate my boy - Damn them all
And the Yanks ate Carfax with flames and burned grandsire Delapore
And the secret, no no! I tell you I was not
The demon swineherd in the twilight grotto
'Twas not Edward Norry's fat face on that flabby, funguous thing who says I'm a de la poer
'Tis voodoo! I tell you! That spotted snake curse you
Thorton! I'll teach you to faint at what family do
S'bloat thou stinkard I'll learn ye to gust
Wouldst thou swilke minke ways
Magna mater! Magna mater, atys
Ungl, ungl, ryle ke ke ke

Or so they say is what I said
When they found me aft' hours passed by
With my cat still chasing the rats
A half-chewed Norrys by my side

But my doctors can't hear the rats in the walls
As downward and downard the skitter and crawl
And the ravenous hunger that once kept them fed
Truly has never been quite abated

But the poorly-named cat hears the rats in the walls
As downward and downward they skitter and crawl
And the ravenous hunger that once kept them fed
Truly can never be quite abated