Believe in this, my accomplice,
For crime do we commit of consequence,
We know no music but the serpent’s hiss,
No lustre, lust or craving not monstrous.
We must to this dark task emboldened be
For sinless mortals others better play.
Our play was writ to love the elegy
That night does sing upon the theft of day.
You and I, our souls as loose as change,
Will slink and clink when all are fast abed
And take from ever’one within the grange
To whom God hath given wealth instead.
To be damned and live I do prefer
O’er death by virtue’s pious hunger.