The Devil is a gentleman, and asks you down to stay <br />At his little place at What'sitsname (it isn't far away). <br />They say the sport is splendid; there is always something new, <br />And fairy scenes, and fearful feats that none but he can do; <br />He can shoot the feathered cherubs if they fly on the estate, <br />Or fish for Father Neptune with the mermaids for a bait; <br />He scaled amid the staggering stars that precipice, the sky, <br />And blew his trumpet above heaven, and got by mastery <br />The starry crown of God Himself, and shoved it on the shelf; <br />But the Devil is a gentleman, and doesn't brag himself. <br /> <br />O blind your eyes and break your heart and hack your hand away, <br />And lose your love and shave your head; but do not go to stay <br />At the little place in What'sitsname where folks are rich and clever; <br />The golden and the goodly house, where things grow worse for ever; <br />There are things you need not know of, though you live and die in vain, <br />There are souls more sick of pleasure than you are sick of pain; <br />There is a game of April Fool that's played behind its door, <br />Where the fool remains for ever and the April comes no more, <br />Where the splendour of the daylight grows drearier than the dark, <br />And life droops like a vulture that once was such a lark: <br />And that is the Blue Devil that once was the Blue Bird; <br />For the Devil is a gentleman, and doesn't keep his word.<br /><br />Gilbert Keith Chesterton<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-aristocrat-2/
