The Poems of Winthrop Mackworth Praed With a Memoir by the Rev. Derwent Coleridge. Fourth Edition. In Two Volumes |
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 | The Poems of Winthrop Mackworth Praed |  |
433
XXXV. BRIMSTONE
The night was dark, the night was damp:
St. Bruno read by his lonely lamp.
The Fiend dropped in to make a call,
As he posted away to a fancy ball;
And “Can't I find,” said the Father of lies,
“Some present a Saint may not despise?”
St. Bruno read by his lonely lamp.
The Fiend dropped in to make a call,
As he posted away to a fancy ball;
And “Can't I find,” said the Father of lies,
“Some present a Saint may not despise?”
Wine he brought him, such as yet
Was ne'er on Pontiff's table set:
Weary and faint was the holy man,
But he crossed with a cross the Tempter's can,
And saw, ere my First to his parched lip came,
That it was red with liquid flame.
Was ne'er on Pontiff's table set:
Weary and faint was the holy man,
But he crossed with a cross the Tempter's can,
And saw, ere my First to his parched lip came,
That it was red with liquid flame.
Jewels he showed him—many a gem
Fit for a Sultan's diadem:
Dazzled, I trow, was the anchorite:
But he told his beads with all his might;
And instead of my Second, so rich and rare,
A pinch of worthless dust lay there.
Fit for a Sultan's diadem:
Dazzled, I trow, was the anchorite:
But he told his beads with all his might;
And instead of my Second, so rich and rare,
A pinch of worthless dust lay there.
434
A Lady at last he handed in,
With a bright black eye and a fair white skin:
The stern ascetic flung, 'tis said,
A ponderous missal at her head:
She vanished away; and what a smell
Of my Whole she left in the hermit's cell!
With a bright black eye and a fair white skin:
The stern ascetic flung, 'tis said,
A ponderous missal at her head:
She vanished away; and what a smell
Of my Whole she left in the hermit's cell!
| The Poems of Winthrop Mackworth Praed | |