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

And Downing spied among the crew
At least a dozen whom he knew
And hitherto had held for sure
As chosen spirits, levites pure,
Nor guessed that, underneath their show
Of sanctimonious joy or woe,
They were the sons of Ashtoreth
And walked in secret ways of death.

Immensely dazed our hero was
To find the squires of Zion's laws
Communing with the rascal horde
Of those who call the devil Lord.
But being blest with Yankee sense,
He straightway drew the inference
That all who taste of sin's delight
In open day or veiling night,
No matter how they garb their lives,
Are neophytes of wizard hives
Who come perforce to Satan's whirls
And dance to every tune he skirls.

Yet all the keener grew his fear
Because he found acquaintance here;
For doubts befell lest even he
Had bended unaware the knee
To reverence the lord of Dis,
And might receive the branding kiss,
And find himself among the mell
Of those who jig their way to hell.
The whimsy scared; he turned to go;

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He fled on skulking tip of toe;
He groped in whirls of sulphur-smoke,
And fell within a hollow oak;
There, goggling through a gnarly hole,
He watched aghast the hideous shoal
Of wizard, fiend and imp and troll.