From his brimstone bed at break of day <br />A walking the DEVIL is gone, <br />To visit his little snug farm of the earth <br />And see how his stock went on. <br /> <br />Over the hill and over the dale, <br />And he went over the plain, <br />And backward and forward he swished his long tail <br />As a gentleman swishes his cane. <br /> <br />And how then was the Devil drest? <br />Oh! he was in his Sunday's best: <br />His jacket was red and his breeches were blue, <br />And there was a hole where the tail came through. <br /> <br />He saw a LAWYER killing a Viper <br />On a dung heap beside his stable, <br />And the Devil smiled, for it put him in mind <br />Of Cain and _his_ brother, Abel. <br /> <br />A POTHECARY on a white horse <br />Rode by on his vocations, <br />And the Devil thought of his old Friend <br />DEATH in the Revelations. <br /> <br />He saw a cottage with a double coach-house, <br />A cottage of gentility! <br />And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin <br />Is pride that apes humility. <br /> <br />He went into a rich bookseller's shop, <br />Quoth he! we are both of one college, <br />For I myself sate like a cormorant once <br />Fast by the tree of knowledge. <br /> <br />Down the river there plied, with wind and tide, <br />A pig with vast celerity; <br />And the Devil look'd wise as he saw how the while, <br />It cut its own throat. 'There!' quoth he with a smile, <br />'Goes 'England's commercial prosperity.'' <br /> <br />As he went through Cold-Bath Fields he saw <br />A solitary cell; <br />And the Devil was pleased, for it gave him a hint <br />For improving his prisons in Hell. <br /> <br />* * * * * * <br /> <br />General ----------- burning face <br />He saw with consternation, <br />And back to hell his way did he take, <br />For the Devil thought by a slight mistake <br />It was general conflagration.<br /><br />Samuel Taylor Coleridge<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-devil-s-thoughts/
