They all climbed up on a high board-fence -- Nine little Goblins, with green-glass eyes -- Nine little Goblins that had no sense, And couldn't tell coppers from cold mince pies; And they all climbed up on the fence, and sat -- And I asked them what they were staring at.
And the first one said, as he scratched his head With a queer little arm that reached out of his ear And rasped its claws in his hair so red -- "This is what this little arm is fer!"
And he scratched and stared, and the next one said, "How on earth do _you_ scratch your head?"
And he laughed like the screech of a rusty hinge -- Laughed and laughed till his face grew black; And when he choked, with a final twinge Of his stifling laughter, he thumped his back With a fist that grew on the end of his tail Till the breath came back to his lips so pale.
And the third little Goblin leered round at me -- And there were no lids on his eyes at all -- And he clucked one eye, and he says, says he, "What is the style of your socks this fall?"
And he clapped his heels -- and I sighed to see That he had hands where his feet should be.
Then a bald-faced Goblin, gray and grim, Bowed his head, and I saw him slip His eyebrows off, as I looked at him, And paste them over his upper lip; And then he moaned in remorseful pain -- "Would -- Ah, would I'd me brows again!"
And then the whole of the Goblin band Rocked on the fence-top to and fro, And clung, in a long row, hand in hand, Singing the songs that they used to know -- Singing the songs that their grandsires sung In the goo-goo days of the Goblin-tongue.
And ever they kept their green-glass eyes Fixed on me with a stony stare -- Till my own grew glazed with a dread surmise, And my hat whooped up on my lifted hair, And I felt the heart in my breast snap to As you've heard the lid of a snuff-box do.
And they sang "You're asleep! There is no board-fence, And never a Goblin with green-glass eyes! -- 'Tis only a vision the mind invents After a supper of cold mince-pies, -- And you're doomed to dream this way," they said, -- "_And you sha'n't wake up till you're clean plum dead! _"
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