The Downing legends : Stories in Rhyme :: :: University of Virginia Library

So sturdy Downing wandered down
The wizard canon of the West,
And only saw a Stygian town
Where some would spy the mansions blest,
Or pillared jinn, or chained afreet,
Or hear the loreleis chanting sweet.

Its solemn gulfs and awful steeps,
Its crests and pinnacles sublime,
Its giant cities, hurled in heaps,
Its wondrous mimicry and mime
Of every mighty work that man
Has builded since the world began,
Its glories all, were naught to him
But lairs of fiendish seraphim.
A solid knight of common sense,
A puritan of faith intense,
He knew Apollyon's sooty face
Behind the veil of fay or grace;
He saw his gloomy wings o'erspread
Sublime abyss or mountain head,
And felt his deadly malice quiver
In every fair enchanted river.

But like the most of humankind,

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He found the things he looked to find;
He found the demons and their power
From early dawn to sunset hour;
He felt their poisoned talons rive
Wherever he might drive or strive;
And here especially he knew
The crowning rage of Satan's crew,
The utmost malice Hell could brew.
Full oft its spunkies overset
His skiff and left him dripping wet;
Or dragged him like a helpless girl
For hours around an eddy's whirl;
Or slung him like a javelin
Adown a cataract's foaming din.
From morn to night they plagued his path;
For many a day he felt their wrath.