The Humourous Poetry of the English Language

253
From his brimstone bed at break of day
A walking the Devil is gone,
To look at his snug little farm of the World,
And see how his stock went on.
Over the hill and over the dale,
And he went over the plain;
And backward and forward he swish'd his tail
As a gentleman swishes a cane.
How then was the Devil drest?
Oh, he was in his Sunday's best
His coat was red and hia breeches were blue,
And there was a hole where his tail came through.
A lady drove by in her pride,
In whose face an expression he spied
For which he could have kiss'd her,
Such a flourishing, fine, clever woman was she,
With an eye as wicked as wicked can be,
I should take her for my Aunt, thought he,
If my dam had had a sister.
He met a lord of high degree,
No matter what was his name;
Whose face with his own when he came to compare
The expression, the look, and the air,
And the character, too, as it seem'd to a hair--
Such a twin-likeness there was in the pair
That it made the Devil start and stare.
For he thought there was surely a looking-glass there,
But he could not see the frame.
He saw a Lawyer killing a viper,
On a dung-hill beside his stable;
Ha! quoth he, thou put'st me in mind
Of the story of Cain and Abel.
An Apothecary on a white horse
Rode by on his vocation;