Seven Scenes from the Painting Exhuming the First American Mastodon by C. W. Peale by John Greaves, Peter Blegvad, Lisa Herman Lyrics

Youth with no name cuts out of the frame with an axe
Those who extol a bone on a scroll turn their backs
Sanction his escape

Attached to his toe, shackles below the surface hold
A neophyte fast who ogles aghast a bone of gold
Emblazoned with his name

Three green umbrellas are shown in all
These denote degrees by which a fall
(a fall from grace) may be measured
As virtual, potential or as actual
The first has been dropped
The second picked up but not untied;
The third has been spread high overhead to hide the sky

Nourished by the two syringes shown
The wheel "Nomenclator" (better known)
To the world as the High Priestess) names (i.e. defines)
Her victims forever
John Masten has hung so long from a rung he now depends
On it as much as from it for such a vantage lends
Itself to one who proudly claims
To be amphibious though actually allergic to
The two predicaments to which his ladder leads