For strictest rules of attitude.
To elevate the Common Good
In Brotherhood and Sisterhood
We celebrate authority.
Fraternity, Sorority,
United, pressing onward, we
Restrict the ills of liberty.
There is no numinosity
Like Power’s generosity
In helping curb atrocity.
Bear down on the rod and foil the child.
Madame Morrible lowered her head to signify that she was done. There was a rumbling of indistinct comments. Galinda, who didn’t know much about Poetry, thought perhaps this was the accepted way of appreciating it. She grumbled a little bit to Shenshen, who sat in a straightback chair to one side, looking dropsical. Wax from the taper was about to drip onto Shenshen’s silk-shouldered white gown with the lemon-chiffon swags, and ruin it, most likely, but Galinda decided Shenshen’s family could afford to replace a gown. She kept still.
“Another,” said Madame Morrible. “Another Quell.”
The room grew silent, but a little uneasily so?
Alas! For impropriety,
The guillotine of piety.
To remedy society
Indulge not to satiety
In mirth and shameless gaiety.
Choose sobering sobriety.
Behave as if the deity
Approaches in its mystery,
And greet it with sonority.
Let your especial history
Be built upon sorority
Whose Virtues do exemplify,
And Social Good thus multiply.
Animals should be seen and not heard.
Again, there was mumbling, but it was of a different nature now, a meaner key. Doctor Dillamond harrumphed and beat a cloven hoof against the floor, and was heard to say, “Well that’s not poetry, that’s propaganda, and it’s not even good propaganda at that.”
Elphaba sidled over to Galinda’s side with her chair under her arm, and plunked it down between Galinda and Shenshen. She put her bony behind on its slatted seat and leaned to Galind
