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Our pilgrimage to Canterbury done,
we journeyed back to Southwark with the sun
behind us till we spotted in a glade
a lump of primal jelly, newly-made.

It slithered up onto a mouse’s back
and followed us along a rural track
as does a horseman, growing all the while,
its features less inhuman every mile.

Dispensing with the mouse’s aid, it steered
aboard a dog, as ears and eyes appeared.
It took – on sprouting arms and legs – a pig
to be its mount until it grew too big.

The beast, swathed now in hair, purloined a horse,
climbed up and joined us ambling on our course
to London; then, transformed from ape to man,
was part of our illustrious human clan.