Where Is Cash the Moor?

O where is Cash the Moor tonight?
Where hides the captain of the guard?
My holy ears hear laughter’s blight,
The rabble mocks me in their yard!
Why are their filthy tongues still free,
Not locked in stocks or dungeon stone?
A saint like me should never see
A crowd that dares to mock my throne!

Where is Cash? Where is Cash?
Has he fled or lost his nerve?
Saint Upid calls, the streets abash’d —
Yet none leap forth his grace to serve!

Cash! O Cash! I summon thee!
Why isn’t all this scum in chains?
Each wretched knave who laughs at me
Should rot in darkness for their stains.
And Bambi Blondy, ever wise,
With law-scrolls thick as winter logs,
Would surely find ten alibis
To jail these jesters, fools, and rogues!

But people murmur far and wide,
Of Cash who rides from bride to bride —
Not sinful that! (Saint Upid’s too!)
But with the royal donkey?… oh, taboo.

No sin to warm a lover’s bed,
For I — divinely — do the same!
My holy “visits,” bless instead,
And never tarnish my good name!
But Cash, you fool, beware your pride!
A donkey royal must not stray —
If you are seen at donkey’s side,
Its likeness on your face may stay!

A donkey’s shade, a donkey’s grin —
O Cash, beware your chosen path!
For if the donkey paints your skin,
Saint Upid shares your donkey’s wrath!

Cash the Moor! Come stand before!
Cleanse these streets with fear and might!
Drive out the knaves, the laughing poor,
Restore my holy, sacred right!
For if the donkey’s curse you earn,
And look an ass — O dreadful fate!
Its shadow on me may return,
And stain the saint who’s pure and great!

Thus cries the saint in moonlit gloom,
Demanding jails and swift accord.
Where walks Cash Moor in lover’s bloom?
And who now guards the saintly lord?