Complete Poetical Works of Robert Southey
Page 47
And time has not thinn’d nor straighten’d his hair,
Notwithstanding that now he is more than halfway
On the road from Grizzle to Gray.
He hath a long nose with a bending ridge;
It might be worthy of notice on Strasburg bridge.
He sings like a lark when at morn he arises,
And when evening comes he nightingalizes,
Warbling house-notes wild from throat and gizzard,
Which reach from A to G, and from G to Izzard.
His voice is as good as when he was young,
And he has teeth enough left to keep-in his tongue.
A man he is by nature merry,
Somewhat Tom-foolish, and comical, very;
Who has gone through the world, not mindful of pelf,
Upon easy terms, thank Heaven, with himself,
Along by-paths and in pleasant ways,
Caring as little for censure as praise;
Having some friends whom he loves dearly,
And no lack of foes, whom he laughs at sincerely;
And never for great, nor for little things,
Has he fretted his guts to fiddle-strings.
He might have made them by such folly
Most musical, most melancholy.
Sic cecinit Robertus, anno ætatis suæ 55.
THE DEVIL’S WALK
ADVERTISEMENT.
After the Devil’s Thoughts had been published by Mr Coleridge in the collection of his Poetical Works, and the statement with which he accompanied it, it might have been supposed that the joint authorship of that Siamese production had been sufficiently authenticated, and that no supposititious claim to it would again he advanced. The following extract, however, appeared in the John Bull of Feb. 14, 1830:—”In the Morning Post of Tuesday, we find the following letter: —
“‘To the Editor of the Morning Post.
“‘SIR, — Permit me to correct a statement which appeared in a recent number of the John Bull, wherein it is made to appear that Dr. Southey is the author of the Poem entitled The Devil’s Walk. I have the means of settling this ques- tion, since I possess the identical MS. copy of verses, as they were written by my uncle, the late Professor Porson, during an evening party at Dr. Beloe’s. “‘I am, Sir, your very obedient servant,—”’R. C. PORSON.
“‘Bayswater Terrace, Feb. 6, 1830.’
“We are quite sure that Mr. Porson, the writer of the above letter, is convinced of the truth of the statement it contains; but although The Devil’s Walk is perhaps not a work of which cither Mr. Southey or Mr. Porson need be very proud, we feel it due to ourselves to restate the fact of its being from the pen of Mr. Southey. If we are wrong, Mr. Porson may apply to Mr. Southey; for although Mr. Person’s eminent uncle is dead, the Poet Laureate is alive and merry. “The Lines — Poem they can scarcely he called — were written by Mr. Southey one morning before breakfast, the idea having struck him while he was shaving; they were subsequently shown to Mr. Coleridge, who, we believe, pointed some of the stanzas, and perhaps added one or two. “Wo beg to assure Mr. R. C. Porson that we recur to this matter out of no disrespect either to the memory of his uncle, which is not likely to be affected one way or another, by the circumstance; or to his own veracity, being, as we said, quite assured that he believes the statement he makes: our only object is to set ourselves right.”
* * *
“Our readers, perhaps, may smile at the following, which appears in yesterday’s Court Journal—”’ We have received a letter, signed “W. Marshall,” and dated “York;” claiming for its writer the long-contested authorship of those celebrated verses, which arc known by the title of The Devil’s Walk on Earth, and to which attention has lately been directed anew, by Lord Byron’s imitation of them. There have been so many mystifications connected with the authorship of these clever verses, that, for any thing we know to the contrary, this letter may be only one more.’” * * * A week afterwards there was the following notice: — Wu cannot waste any more time about The Devils Walk. We happen to know that it is Mr. Southey’s; hut as he is alive, we refer any body, who is not yet satisfied, to the eminent person himself — we do not mean the Devil — but the Doctor.” The same newspaper contained the ensuing advertisement:—’ ‘On Tuesday next, uniform with Robert Cruikshank’s Monsieur Tonson, price one shilling: The Devil’s Walk, a Poem, by Professor Porsen. With additions and variations by Southey and Coleridge: illustrated by seven engravings from R. Cruikshank. London, Marsh and Miller, 137, Oxford Street; and Constable and Co., Edinburgh.” Professor Porson never had any part in these verses as a writer, and it is for the first time that he now appears in them as the subject of two or three stanzas written some few years ago, when the fabricated story of his having composed them during an evening party at Dr. Vincent’s (for that was the original habitat of this falsehood) was revived. A friend of one of the authors, more jealous for him than he has ever been for himself, urged him then to put the matter out of doubt, (for it was before Mr. Coleridge had done so;) and as much to please that friend as to amuse himself and his domestic circle, in a sportive mood, the part which relates the rise and progress of the Poem was thrown off, and that also touching the aforesaid Professor. The old vein having thus been opened, some other passages were added; and so it grew to its present length.
THE DEVIL’S WALK.
1.
FROM his brimstone bed at break of day
A walking the Devil is gone,
To look at his little, snug farm of the World,
And see how his stock went on.
2.
Over the hill and over the dale,
And he went over the plain;
And backward and forward he swish’d his tail,
As a gentleman swishes a cane.
3.
How then was the Devil dress’d?
Oh, he was in his Sunday’s best;
His coat was red, and his breeches were blue,
And there was a hole where his tail came through.
4.
A lady drove by in her pride,
In whose face an expression he spied,
For which he could have kiss’d her;
Such a flourishing, fine, clever creature was she,
With an eye as wicked as wicked can be:
I should take her for my Aunt, thought he;
If my dam had had a sister.
5.
He met a lord of high degree, —
No matter what was his name, —
Whose face with his own when he came to compare
The expression, the look, and the air,
And the character too, as it seem’d to a hair, —
Such a twin-likeness there was in the pair,
That it made the Devil start and stare;
For he thought there was surely a looking-glass there
But he could not see the frame.
6.
He saw a Lawyer killing a viper
On a dunghill beside his stable;
Ho! quoth he, thou put’st me in mind
Of the story of Cain and Abel.
7.
An Apothecary on a white horse
Rode by on his vocation;
And the Devil thought of his old friend
Death in the Revelation.
8.
He pass’d a cottage with a double coach-house,
A cottage of gentility;
And he own’d with a grin
That his favorite sin
Is pride that apes humility.
9.
He saw a pig rapidly
Down a river float;
The pig swam well, but every stroke
Was cutting his own throat; —
10.
And Satan gave thereat his tail
A twirl of admiration;
For he thought of his daughter War
And her suckling babe Taxation.
11.
Well enough, in sooth, he l
iked that truth,
And nothing the worse for the jest;
But this was only a first thought;
And in this he did not rest:
Another came presently into his head;
And here it proved, as has often been said,
That second thoughts are best
12.
For as Piggy plied, with wind and tide,
His way with such celerity,
And at every stroke the water dyed
With his own red blood, the Devil cried
Behold a swinish nation’s pride
In cotton-spun prosperity
13.
He walk’d into London leisurely;
The streets were dirty and dim;
But there he saw Brothers the Prophet,
And Brothers the Prophet saw him.
14.
He entered a thriving bookseller’s shop;
Quoth he, We are both of one college,
For I myself sate like a Cormorant once
Upon the Tree of Knowledge.
15.
As he passed through Cold-Bath Fields, he look’d
At a solitary cell;
And he was well-pleased, for it gave him a hint
For improving the prisons of Hell.
16.
He saw a turnkey tie a thief’s hands
With a cordial tug and jerk;
Nimbly, quoth he, a man’s fingers move
When his heart is in his work.
17.
He saw the same turnkey unfettering a man
With little expedition;
And he chuckled to think of his dear slave trade,
And the long debates and delays that were made
Concerning its abolition.
18.
He met one of his favorite daughters
By an Evangelical Meeting;
And forgetting himself for joy at her sight,
He would have accosted her outright,
And given her a fatherly greeting.
19.
But she tipp’d him a wink, drew back, and cried,
Avaunt! my name’s Religion!
And then she turn’d to the preacher,
And leer’d like a love-sick pigeon.
20.
A fine man and a famous Professor was he,
As the great Alexander now may be,
Whose fame not yet o’erpast is
Or that new Scotch performer
Who is fiercer and warmer,
The great Sir Arch-Bombastes;
21.
With throbs and throes, and ahs and ohs,
Far famed his flock for frightening;
And thundering with his voice, the while
His eyes zigzag like lightning.
22.
This Scotch phenomenon, I trow,
Beats Alexander hollow;
Even when most tame,
He breathes more flame
Than ten Fire-Kings could swallow
23.
Another daughter he presently met:
With music of fife and drum,
And a consecrated flag,
And shout of tag and rag,
And march of rank and file,
Which had fill’d the crowded aisle
Of the venerable pile,
From church he saw her come.
24.
He call’d her aside, and began to chide,
For what dost thou here? said he;
My city of Rome is thy proper home,
And there’s work enough there for thee.
25.
Thou hast confessions to listen,
And bells to christen,
And altars and dolls to dress;
And fools to coax,
And sinners to hoax,
And beads and bones to bless;
And great pardons to sell
For those who pay well,
And small ones for those who pay less.
26.
Nay, Father, I boast, that this is my post,
She answered; and thou wilt allow,
That the great Harlot,
Who is clothed in scarlet,
Can very well spare me now.
27.
Upon her business I am come here,
That we may extend her powers;
Whatever lets down this church that we hate,
Is something in favor of ours.
28.
You will not think, great Cosmocrat!
That I spend my time in fooling;
Many irons, my Sire, have we in the fire,
And I must leave none of them cooling;
For you must know state-councils here
Are held which I bear rule in.
When my liberal notions
Produce mischievous motions,
There’s many a man of good intent,
In either house of Parliament,
Whom I shall find a tool in;
And I have hopeful pupils too
Who all this while are schooling.
29.
Fine progress they make in our liberal opinions,
My Utilitarians,
My all sorts of — inians
And all sorts of — arians;
My all sorts of — ists,
And my Prigs and my Whigs,
Who have all sorts of twists,
Train’d in the very way, I know,
Father, you would have them go;
High and low,
Wise and foolish, great and small,
March-of-Intellect-Boys all.
30.
Well pleased wilt thou be at no very far day,
When the caldron of mischief boils,
And I bring them forth in battle array,
And bid them suspend their broils,
That they may unite and fall on the prey,
For which we are spreading our toils.
How the nice boys all will give mouth at the call,
Hark away! hark away to the spoils!
My Macs and my Quacks and my lawless-Jacks,
My Shields and O’Connells, my pious Mac-Donnells,
My joke-smith Sidney, and all of his kidney,
My Humes and my Broughams,
My merry old Jerry,
My Lord Kings, and my Doctor Doyles!
31.
At this good news, so great
The Devil’s pleasure grew,
That with a joyful swish he rent
The hole where his tail came through.
32.
His countenance fell for a moment
When he felt the stitches go;
Ah! thought he, there’s a job now
That I’ve made for my tailor below.
33.
Great news! bloody news! cried a newsman;
The Devil said, Stop, let me see!
Great news? bloody news? thought the Devil,
The bloodier the better for me.
34.
So he bought the newspaper, and no news
At all for his money he had.
Lying varlet, thought he, thus to take in old Nick!
But it’s some satisfaction, my lad,
To know thou art paid beforehand for the trick,
For the sixpence I gave thee is bad.
35.
And then it came into his head,
By oracular inspiration,
That what he had seen and what he had said,
In the course of this visitation,
Would be published in the Morning Post
For all this reading nation.
36.
Therewith in second-sight he saw
The place, and the manner and time,
In which this mortal story
Would be put in immortal rhyme.
37.
That it would happen when two poets
Should on a time be met
In the town of Nether Stowey,
In the shire of Somerset.
>
38.
There, while the one was shaving,
Would he the song begin;
And the other, when he heard it at breakfast,
In ready accord join in.
39.
So each would help the other,
Two heads being better than one;
And the phrase and conceit
Would in unison meet,
And so with glee the verse flow free
In ding-dong chime of sing-song rhyme,
Till the whole were merrily done.
40.
And because it was set to the razor,
Not to the lute or harp,
Therefore it was that the fancy
Should be bright, and the wit be sharp.
41.
But their, said Satan to himself,
As for that said beginner,
Against my infernal Majesty
There is no greater sinner.
42.
He hath put me in ugly ballads
With libellous pictures for sale;
He hath scoff’d at my hoofs and my horns,
And has made very free with my tail.
43.
But this Mister Poet shall find
I am not a safe subject for whim;
For I’ll set up a School of my own,
And my Poets shall set upon him.
44.
He went to a coffee-house to dine,
And there he had soy in his dish;