THE devil returned to hell by two,

When he dined on some homicides done in ragoÛt,

And sausages made of a self-slain Jew—

And bethought himself what next to do,

I walked in the morning, I’ll ride to-night;

In darkness my children take most delight,

“And what shall I ride in?” quoth Lucifer then;

I should mount in a wagon of wounded men,

But these will be furnished again and again,

To see my manor as much as I may,

And watch that no souls shall be poached away.

“I have a state coach at Carlton House,

But they’re lent to two friends, who make me amends

And they handle their reins with such a grace,

I have something for both at the end of the race.

“So now for the earth to take my chance.”

And making a jump from Moscow to France,

And rested his hoof on a turnpike road,

No very great way from a bishop’s abode.

But first, as he flew, I forgot to say,

That he hovered a moment upon his way

And so sweet to his eye was its sulphury glare,

And so soft to his ear was the cry of despair,

And he gazed with delight from its growing height,

Nor often on earth had he seen such a sight,

For the field ran so red with the blood of the dead,

Then loudly and wildly and long laughed he:

“Methinks they have here little need of me!”

But the softest note that soothed his ear

And the sweetest sight was the icy tear,

Which horror froze in the blue eye clear

As round her fell her long fair hair;

And she looked to heaven with that frenzied air,

Which seemed to ask if a God were there!

And, stretched by the wall of a ruined hut,

And the carnage begun, when resistance is done,