ought himself what next to do,
'And,' quoth he, 'I'll take a drive.
I walk'd in the morning, I'll ride to-night;
In darkness my children take most delight,
And I'll see how my favourites thrive.'

2.

"'And what shall I ride in?' quoth Lucifer, then--
'If I follow'd my taste, indeed,
I should mount in a wagon of wounded men,
And smile to see them bleed.
But these will be furnish'd again and again,
And at present my purpose is speed;
To see my manor as much as I may,
And watch that no souls shall be poach'd away.

3.

"'I have a state coach at Carleton House,
A chariot in Seymour Place;
But they're lent to two friends, who make me amends
By driving my favourite pace:
And they handle their reins with such a grace,
I have something for both at the end of the race.

4.

"'So now for the earth to take my chance.'
Then up to the earth sprung he;
And making a jump from Moscow to France,
He stepped across the sea,
And rested his hoof on a turnpike road,
No very great way from a bishop's abode.

5.

"But first as he flew, I forgot to say,
That he hover'd a moment upon his way
To look upon Leipsic plain;
And so sweet to his eye was its sulphury glare,
And so soft to his ear was the cry of despair,
That he perch'd on a mountain of slain;
And he gazed with delight from its growing height;
Not often on earth had he seen such a sight,
Nor his work done half as well:
For the field ran so red with the blood of the dead,
That it blush'd like the waves of hell!
Then loudly, and wildly, and long laugh'd he--
'Methinks they have here little need of me!' * * *

8.

"But the softest note that sooth'd his ear
Was the sound of a widow sighing,
And the sweetest sight was the icy tear,
Which Horror froze in the blue eye clear
Of a maid by her lover lying--
As round her fell her long fair hair;
And she look'd to Heaven with that frenzied air
Which seem'd to ask if a God were there!
And, stretch'd by the wall of a ruin'd hut,
With its hollow cheek, and eyes half shut,
A child of famine dying:
And the carnage begun, when resistance is done,
And the fall of the vainly flying!

10.

"But the Devil has reach'd our cliffs so white,
And what did he there, I