Now when the delegates met around the tables And lifted up their voices, The subjects were their civilizing tasks, The fulfilment of historic missions, The redemption of the national honour, And the emancipation of the slaves. But flaws were hidden in the predicates, And in the pips of the adverbials, And the rhetorical adjectives Assumed the protective colouring Of the great cats against the jungle grass— THEREFORE, In all the wealth of their possessive pronouns, Not a syllable was spared For the oil reported in the foreign shales.