Skip to content
Linespedia

The Sorcerer's Song.

Topics: classic

Oh! my name is John Wellington Wells     I'm a dealer in magic and spells,     In blessings and curses,     And ever filled purses,     In prophecies, witches and knells!     If you want a proud foe to "make tracks"     If you'd melt a rich uncle in wax     You've but to look in     On our resident Djinn,     Number seventy, Simmery Axe.     We've a first class assortment of magic;     And for raising a posthumous shade     With effects that are comic or tragic,     There's no cheaper house in the trade.     Love-philtre we've quantities of it;     And for knowledge if any one burns,     We keep an extremely small prophet, a prophet     Who brings us unbounded returns:     For he can prophesy     With a wink of his eye,     Peep with security     Into futurity,     Sum up your history,     Clear up a mystery,     Humor proclivity     For a nativity.     With mirrors so magical,     Tetrapods tragical,     Bogies spectacular,     Answers oracular,     Facts astronomical,     Solemn or comical,     And, if you want it, he     Makes a reduction on taking a quantity!      Oh!     If any one anything lacks,     He'll find it all ready in stacks,     If he'll only look in     On the resident Djinn,     Number seventy, Simmery Axe!     He can raise you hosts      Of ghosts,     And that without reflectors;     And creepy things      With wings,     And gaunt and grisly spectres!     He can fill you crowds      Of shrouds,     And horrify you vastly;     He can rack your brains      With chains,     And gibberings grim and ghastly.     Then, if you plan it, he     Changes organity,     With an urbanity,     Full of Satanity,     Vexes humanity     With an inanity     Fatal to vanity     Driving your foes to the verge of insanity!     Barring tautology,     In demonology,     'Lectro biology,     Mystic nosology,     Spirit philology,     High class astrology,     Such is his knowledge, he     Isn't the man to require an apology!      Oh!     My name is John Wellington Wells,     I'm a dealer in magic and spells,     In blessings and curses,     And ever filled purses     In prophecies, witches and knells!     If any one anything lacks,     He'll find it all ready in stacks,     If he'll only look in     On the resident Djinn,     Number seventy, Simmery Axe!

AI analysis available. Enable JavaScript to interact.

About this line

"Oh! my name is John Wellington Wells ..."

William Schwenck Gilbert's contribution to classic is further solidified by the brilliance found in "The Sorcerer's Song."... ### Why We Love This Line At Linespedia, we believe that poetry is the ultimate sanctuary for the soul...

Classified Tags

Related lines

"When I was a lad I served a term     As office boy to an Attorney's firm.     I cleaned the windows and I swept the floor,     And I polished u"

"Take a pair of sparkling eyes,     Hidden, ever and anon,     In a merciful eclipse     Do not heed their mild surprise     Having passed th"

"Of all the good attorneys who     Have placed their names upon the roll,     But few could equal BAINES CAREW     For tender-heartedness and so"

"A monarch is pestered with cares,     Though, no doubt, he can often trepan them;     But one comes in a shape he can never escape -     The im"

"Here morning in the ploughman's songs is met     Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky,     And twilight in the east, a doubt as yet,     S"

"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"

Continue Reading

"When I was a lad I served a term     As office boy..."

Weekly Poetic Insight

Join our literary Sanctuary

Get the most inspiring lines, poetic analysis, and secret shayaris delivered to your inbox every Sunday.